Hairy tales

What is it with boys and their laziness to maintain the mop on their heads, leave alone washing faces? Many a times my son would spend about an hour in the bathroom and come out like someone who had buried himself neck deep in sand leaving the head out in the sun. And then spend about half an hour in front of the mirror ruffling his hair making sure he looks just the opposite of yesteryear brylcreemed heroes. 

Our weekends begin with the task of chalking out a plan, that closely resembles a war strategy, to take him, drag him or kick him all the way to the salon which must now be accomplished at least twice a month. An any-time now teen that he is, this has to be done with absolute nonchalance, which is now a characteristic of his own behaviour. Seen, but not to be seen. Spoken to but not speaking. All weird gesticulations practised by his parents and sister to evoke response are now met with a non-committal stare.

I am digressing but that is the whole point of this adolescent tantrum. Quietly undoing his parents' well thought out speech on a hair cut by simply staring into the wilderness. And then the parents lose track and start talking about his birthday dress, colour of socks, disorderly school bag and start discussing with each other about who is going to get keeravadai from Grandsweets as there is no side dish for lunch only to realize an hour later that the boy in question has quietly slipped away and is now plotting schemes with his sister. The only time brother and sister are on amicable terms.

Having missed the main problem by more than a hair's breadth, it is now postponed to the following week. By which time his hair will resemble a nest with our expecting an exotic bird out anytime in the future.

These tales are common place everywhere. A few months back, a friend  called one day in the wee hours. Scrambling out of bed, I knocked down the phone, AC remote, and tried to press the buttons of the remote instead of the phone creating early morning mayhem in the process and was shooed out of the room. The call was to fix a salon-date for our sons with both competing for who has the most unkempt hairdo in the class. It is another story that our plans were already thwarted by the boys a week earlier.

Another day, I visited a friend and was ushered in by an extremely grumpy boy who looked very familiar. It was her son made unrecognisable by his new haircut. That explained the grumpiness. The friend later revealed that she had threatened him that if he didn't use a hair brush soon his hair would be brushing off the cobwebs on the ceiling, a six-footer that he is.

Wel(l)com(b)ed.