Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 15, 1993 TAG: 9311160261
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: EDITORIAL EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Soon after we met, as we sought for topics about which to chat while she clipped, a Bette Midler tune came on the Muzak.
``Bette Midler's great,'' the young woman said.
I agreed. ``I particularly admired her in that movie in which she played Jan is Joplin,'' I offered.
``Who's Janis Joplin?'' my youthful hairdresser asked.
Nevertheless, I've returned to this young woman for trims and cuts for about four years now. Through long hair and short.
Currently, I'm long. And interested in the versatility of styling that long hair is supposed to provide.
At my last trim, the woman in the chair next to mine was being done up for her wedding. Her hairdresser had arranged her hair in a romantic French twist, accented by frothy tendrils and curly wisps. Longingly, I asked my hairdresser if she thought she could arrange my hair that way sometime. ``I already have the rat,'' I said.
``The what?'' she gasped.
``The rat,'' I said. ``I already have a French twist rat.''
``I hate rats!'' my hairdresser said. ``And mice, too.''
Wait, I thought. This is just like when we tried to talk about Janis Joplin.
So I explained to her about rats: those meshy webs around which and over which even thin hair can be arranged into soft French twists and rolls and doughnut-shaped buns.
``Women used to save their own hair to make their rats,'' I said.
``That's disgusting,'' she shuddered.
``Now, you can only get them from catalogs that specialize in old-timey products, like bloomers and nightcaps and Buster Brown cotton socks in different sizes.''
Catalogs, I could have added, that write in their descriptions of rats, ``Our customers say no one in the beauty parlors sells rats anymore.''
``I've never heard of such a thing,'' my young hairdresser said. ``But I could make you a French twist sometime anyway.''
Is it really so disgusting to save your own hair? I've worn my unusually thick hair long on and off throughout my life. I'll struggle with the bulk for a while and then, customarily on the spur of the moment, I'll rush out and have it all cut off.
After one such debacle, I gathered up the great hanks of my recently removed hair, arranged them into an elegant knot and tied them up with a hair net. After that, from time to time, I pinned that ``bun'' onto the back of my head; and, for a while, the shorn hair in my hairpiece matched my growing hair perfectly.
No more, of course. Too much gray in the real thing these days.
Or, at least, so I suppose. I haven't seen that hairpiece for years.
I hadn't even thought of it until my concerstaino with my young hairdresser about rats. Now, though, reminded me of it, I'd like another glimpse of my 20-year-old head.
I can't imagine where it might be. But when I try to remember where I probably put it (the back of the closet, the keepsake box, the barn), I get visions of actual rodents. I'll bet you anything some clutch of naked pink mice babies is snuggling down to snooze in my hair even as we speak.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB