Bedhead

I’ve always been known to have bedhead – it doesn’t matter if I have long hair, medium length hair or super short spiky hair, bedhead has always been a part of who I am. Usually it doesn’t matter because it’s only family members who see my head for what it really is – a full smattering of cowlicks and white scalp beneath the black hair. Occasionally others gather a glimpse – the mail carrier, the flower delivery boy, another parent dropping her kids off at school, or a neighbor stopping by for coffee. Whenever this happens I immediately think of my mother. She was infamous for freaking out if the doorbell rang and she was dressed in garden gear or hadn’t combed her hair. She’d look at one of us four kids, all equally as disheveled as her, and yell at one of us to answer the door while she went upstairs to get cleaned up. It was then up to us to keep the doorbell ringer occupied for the next 5-10 minutes until Mom showed up in a perfectly pressed chambray shirt with the sleeves casually rolled up and hair and teeth freshly brushed. Whenever our bell rings before I’m properly attired, I panic, wondering who it is that might see me in this state or if there’s any way I can slink away to an upstairs window, unnoticed. About that time one of the kids throws open the door and welcomes the door ringer into our house. No escape for me, at least not this time.