Bubble Gum in Bed
by EC Pandzic
The morning has started gently for mom, but now it was time for everyone to get up. She poked her head in her sleeping daughter’s bedroom and called her to wake. “Come on honey, time for breakfast. I’ll see you downstairs with your father,” she said.
Minutes later from the kitchen, mom heard her little Trudy crying out for her. Mom followed the calls to the upstairs bathroom where she found Trudy pulling at her hair. “Mom, mom, there’s gum in my hair,” she announced as if the cosmos had clandestinely put it there overnight.
“Oh, dear, what did you do?” Mom responded taking a tuft of the young girl’s hair into her hands for inspection.
“I didn’t do it,” Trudy instinctively responded.
“You went to bed with bubble gum again, didn’t you? And after you brushed your teeth too. How many times did I say not to eat anything after you brush your teeth?” Criticized mom.
“But it’s everywhere, get it out mom, get it out,” pleaded Trudy.
“Well, let me see. Put your hands down, I need a good look.” Mom instructed.
Though the morning schedule didn’t allow for such things, mom took a couple of minutes to determine the size of the problem. After researching it on her phone, mom got some cooking oil to dislodge the sticky stuff from Trudy’s hair. Grateful, Trudy tolerated all the prodding and pulling. But not all of the gum came out. As mom worked harder on the remaining spots, it became obvious some gum wasn’t budging. “Looks like we’re going to have to cut a little out.” Mom told Trudy.
While her mom fetched the scissors, Trudy remained in front of the bathroom mirror stroking the strands that had been cleaned and picking at the strands in peril. But Trudy trusted mom would fix everything as she always did.
“Heavens, this might look a little strange for a while,” mom announced with a snip here and a snip there. “Okay, there you go. No more gum in bed please.” Mom said while Trudy assessed the result of the solution in the mirror. “It’ll look better after we shampoo the oil out and it’ll will certainly grow back quickly,” mom added.
After her hair was washed, Trudy reevaluated it in the mirror. Trudy’s hair was shoulder length and only moderately wavey, so the three cut-outs were obvious. She didn’t like that. Trudy again reviewed the result after getting dressed, it didn’t look any better. Her father consoled her over breakfast and they found a baseball cap for her to wear as mom hurried Trudy for the school bus.
That cap might have worked, it might have stayed on Trudy’s head for the couple of months needed if it weren’t for the school’s policies. When Trudy’s teacher asked her to remove it, her classmates were quick to comment, scoff or simply laugh. And when the teacher quieted them down, she might have thought she was doing Trudy a favor, but it just left the kids to their own imaginations and critiques that spilled out into the hall and cafeteria during the day’s breaks.
Only hours later after exiting the school bus at her house, could Trudy fully breakdown crying. When her mother greeted her, Trudy just cried even harder in her arms. “I’m not going back, I’m never going back there,” she exclaimed about school.
“I’m sorry, honey. But it can’t be as bad as that.” Mom said consoling her in a hug. But it was to Trudy and she ran to her room and stayed there. Mom couldn’t get her to come to dinner, couldn’t reason with her about school or convince her that her hair would soon grow back. Both her mother and father were more concerned when they heard her still crying past her bedtime.
Having discussed it, her mother and father went up to talk to her. “Honey, we wouldn’t normally do this at your age, but we’re willing to take you to a hair stylist. They will probably shorten your hair, but they will give new a style that will blend everything together into a nice, professional hairdo,” her mother explained.
“Yes, you may come out looking like a beauty queen,” her father added..
The offer got Trudy thinking, and it’s hard to think and cry at the same time. But it wasn’t as good to Trudy as her life was yesterday, so she hid her head again in her pillow. As her mom and dad continued to sell the idea, Trudy opened her eyes and listened more and more. “Can we go tomorrow?” she then asked.
“Okay, we can do that, honey,” they answered.
Mom made the call the next morning and they soon arrived at the salon that mom frequented. Upon seeing Trudy, mom’s stylist Renaldo was certainly understanding and willing to help. He gave Trudy and her mom some suggestions from several stylist magazines he had there. As Trudy and her mom narrowed down the possibilities to just two, Renaldo said: “I can do either of those. And I think those are both nice.”
Both styles were drastically shorter than the two had hoped and while Trudy and her mom decided which one they would choose, Renaldo was also thinking. “Hmm, I wonder,” he said getting their attention. “I wonder if we’re going at this from the wrong direction. I remember a cut in the Milan fashion show last year. Let me see if I can find that picture.”
A quick couple of minutes later Renaldo was back. “Look at this,” he said. What he showed Trudy and her mom was a picture of a young lady on a fashion runway alongside headshot pictures of her hairdo. The model had similar hair to Trudy’s but was styled in sort of . . . well . . . , a kind of zig-zaggy, brick pattern look where some hair strands were of a certain length and ones next to them were cut at a very different length and so on. It seemed either very Aztec or Egyptian queen looking.
Both Trudy and her mom studied the pictures of the model’s hairdo. “Well, it’s very… distinctive,” mom said trying not to appear critical of the suggestion. But Trudy seemed to like it, or at least she wasn’t dismissing it.
Then Renaldo added: “Think of it this way. We could naturally cut everything to the length of your daughter’s shortest hair, the divots, as we were originally discussing, or we could cut more divots and then let the whole head of hair grow as it normally does. Then as the longer strands are cut over time, the shorter hair, the divots, would continue growing until they are the length of the surrounding hair. The transformation back to a single length would appear seamless.”
Well, that’s all Trudy needed to hear; she was on board. “That’s what I want. Please mom, please,” Trudy pleaded.
Her mom really wasn’t a big fan of the style, but she had Trudy’s traumatic day still fresh on her mind. “Well, I guess the thing about hair is that it’s always growing so it’ll eventually be back to what I like.” Her mother rationalized.
“Thank you, mom, thank you,” Trudy answered ever so gratefully.
As Renaldo worked, the young girl and her mother got a little anxious at what looked like random and haphazard cuts. But an hour later, Trudy, her mother and even Renaldo were impressed with the result.
“It’s funny. I guess we went all-in on what you said your classmates made fun of. Look at you now, you look like a star!” Renaldo said excitedly.
Trudy and her mother were very appreciative, and the next day at school those jeers and tears changed to compliments and cheers.
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