I wanna be down...(hair story 4)

With what ya goin through

* doing the dance that Brandy and Ray J do in the video*

Being bald headed and 13 is probably the worst thing that could happen to a pubescent girl. I had serious concerns about going back to school. (Keep in mind I am [I meant was] a nerd) I would not take ‘senior’ pictures and do the 8th grade activities with no hair! Luckily for me, a TWA started to take shape close to the end of the summer. A friend of my cousin (yes, the same one who did my first perm and who’s hair caught on fire) was a fantastic braider. She told my cousin she could ‘catch it’. This lady worked her magic and I had wrap-braids, burnt at the ends and everything! The first day of school, my cute braids were the talk of the town. The neighbor would re-braid my hair every month and she only charged my aunt $25! That was cheap, even back then. All good things must come to an end. This talented lady got a job at the post office around the Christmas holiday; she no longer had time to sit and work her magic on my tresses. The fear of revealing my lack of hair to my class crept up again. I officially had the Brandy Syndrome. You know… braid your hair, then hurry up and re-braid it before any one ever sees your hair, for years. In a moment of sheer brilliance, I told my aunt that I could do it. Once again I swayed her with the bottom line. “ All you have to do is just buy the hair. It’s cheaper.” Those first braids were a hot mess. I knew it and so did everyone else but there was no way in HELL that I was gonna show my hair. Eventually, I had about 4 ½ inches of hair and guess what I did. I went back to the Just for Me. In between braids I permed from root to tip, like I did when I was ten. This kept up until for a year and half. Somewhere along the line, we moved and my next door neighbor had shoulder length hair. She and her mom were convinced me that perms were hair suicide. Instead, they insisted, I should press my hair. I tried that. It didn’t work! Every time I pressed it, my hair ‘went back’ in about three days--tops! I had never done it before and no one could persuade me to believe it was worth all the hassle. My aunt pressed it well but she was insistent upon using grease. Grease was soooo out. The spray oil sheen was where it was at. Since I hated the half nappy- half straight look, I just pulled my broken dried hair back into a tiny tail in between braids. The good thing is that the peer pressure convinced me to gradually start to cut the permed hair in between braids.