A HAIR RAZING EXPERIENCE

So there I was, peacefully rocking my son to sleep, when the door flung open and my wife tore into the room.

Visibly upset, she said, “Arble grabble throbble blurble!!!!!!” Realizing that she was making no sense whatsoever, she took a deep breath, and, in between mini panic attacks, said, “ALLIE...CUT...HER...HAAAAAAAAAAIRRRRRR!!!!”

With the addition of wild hand gestures, I immediately knew that my wife was extremely upset and now would not be the time for a joke. Unfortunately, I have the world’s worst judgment when it comes to such determinations, and said, “So how does it look?”

Well, you can guess what a 4-year-old’s self inflicted haircut looks like. When I came into the room, there were large chunks of hair on the floor. Big chunks. Long chunks. It looked like we were trying to make a human-hair area rug. Allie was now sobbing, too. Parker, who was almost asleep when this whole fiasco started, took turns glaring at everyone. He saw no reason to be awoken from twilight because of a haircut. I sat down on the bed with Allie. “Allie, WHAT were you thinking?”

“I just wanted to SEEEEE!” was her response.

“See what? Your mother hysterical?” That was greeted with a blank stare. Note to self: Teach Allie definition of “hysterical.”

I began to survey the damage and saw that she had done extensive damage to her hair. Large chunks from all around were snipped from almost the scalp. It is, I assume, what a haircut would look like if you did it with a blender. After some discussion, I determined that, while I was putting my son to sleep, someone had come to the door. My wife went to answer the door, leaving Allie alone for approximately four seconds. Allie found a pair of scissors that, quite frankly, we didn’t even know we had. We have always been very careful about not leaving objects — such as scissors —lying around as play toys. And my wife is a hawk when it comes to the children. Oftentimes, when I am in the playroom with the children, my wife will walk and notice immediately that, say, Parker is on top of the computer. Eagle eye, I tell you.

I began to calm Allie down and turned my attention to my wife. “Honey, it’s no big deal. It’s hair. It’ll grow back.”

“WE LEAVE FOR THE BEACH TOMORROW!!!!”

True enough, my wife and Allie were going to the beach the next day. I had no idea what the correlation to a bad haircut and the beach was, but I gathered up enough intelligence to decide not to ask what difference that made.

“We’ve got to call Barbara. Now.” Barbara is my wife’s hair dresser. Barbara also cuts my hair, but I refuse to have a hair dresser. In fact, it’s good to have someone named Barbara cut your hair, because if you say it fast enough, people assume you say “barber.”

Barbara was getting ready to leave for the day when my wife called. My wife said, “Allie ... hair ... herself ... beach ... help!!!!” Through some strange feminine bond, Barbara knew exactly what my wife was talking about, and told her to come on up and she’d fix the hair.

When my wife and Allie returned about an hour later, Barbara had salvaged Allie’s hair, courtesy of a haircut reminiscent of Sandy Duncan’s Peter Pan. In actuality, she does look really cute, and it matches her personality. When she got out of the car, Allie did a little curtsey and said, “Isn’t it cuuuuu-te!?!?!?”

My wife has since calmed down, and later told me that the reason she was so upset was that Allie could have hurt herself. We have talked to Allie at length since then about things she shouldn’t do when Mommy and Daddy are not around. That list includes anything and everything. I think Allie has gotten the message, because she is very vocal about when she is going to do something. (“Daddy, I’m going to paint Parker yellow.”) We have also made sure that everything that could possibly be used as a hair cutting implement has been safely stowed out of reach. Yes, even the blender.