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Hair Apparent

by Connie Lewis

“Daaaad!!” My teenage daughter wailed.

I smiled to myself. My actions were having the desired effect. Kids, always under estimating you, refusing to realize we were kids once too. In fact, I probably got myself in more trouble at her age than she could ever imagine; which is probably why I was leaning on her so hard now. Wanting to dye her hair purple wouldn’t have made my worst list.

“What’s the matter? I think I look great? You’ve got to admit, not many dads have purple hair. I’ll stand out, be different.”

“Different!” Her face crumpled. “You look ridiculous. No, you look weird. You’re not really going to go out like that are you?” She looked at my face warily, her eyes hopeful.

“Weird, huh. Well, that’s the whole point. Why be boringly normal. Weird stands out. Its a statement, It says I’m my own person, independent, different. Purple hair says it all. I was originally thinking of green, you know, to go with this whole green push everyone is into. Go green. Be green. Green is now, but then, I realized that would be playing right along. No, purple is better. No affiliations, just my private statement.”

“Dad, You can’t be serious, this is so ridiculous.”

“Actually, it’s brilliant. I wonder why I didn’t think of it sooner. I really have you to thank for the whole idea. I’ll bet I can even cut down on advertising. Word of mouth is the best advertising anyway. Customers will say, call that guy with the purple hair. He’s different, answers your calls shows up on time, and does a great plumbing job, who cares if his hair is purple.”

 

I could see she was beginning to fade a little. Maybe I was coming on too strong, after all, teenage rebellion is considered normal. Yet, I saw my little girl as she entered pre-school her innocent face shinning, saw her laughing as she played with her first puppy and now she stood in front of me a teenager with a scowl on her face and rebellion in her eyes. The thing I feared most was that with purple hair she would attract the guys with skinheads, pimpled faces and tattoos. Were Mohawks still in vogue or is that passé? No, I had to stay the course.

So, I went to work, purple hair and all and got a lot of sidelong glances but nothing lethal happened. When I got home my daughter’s hair was its usual lovely, golden brown. All in all, I considered the whole thing worth the histrionics.

“Dad, you were right about the hair. Too obvious.”

She lifted her shirt revealing her newly pierced navel.