Once, someone told me a story about a dude with dreads that had a spider lay eggs in his hair that hatched and little tiny spiders came crawling out of his head and went everywhere. True or not, that has become a fear of mine; something laying eggs in my hair unbeknownst to me until they hatch when I’m in a very public place and everyone sees and runs screaming but not before taking pictures and putting it on the Internet for everyone to see.
Yes, I have done therapy. No, it didn't help. I’ve been spending the last few days weeding the hillside at the back of the house. This means I’ve been bent over pulling weeds taller than me or crouched down trying to get the pesky suckers that refuse to come out in one go. Not only am I covered in mosquito bites - despite my guaranteed mosquito repellant – but also my head has been brushed with that weed and this bush as I manhandled them out of the ground and down the hill. I shower thoroughly after each garden episode but since that tick that last summer attached itself to my side and wouldn’t come out, I am irrationally bug paranoid. The other night, while sitting in the bar in the front row, I felt a tickle on the side of my head and was sure it was a bug. While nodding my head to the beat, I casually reached up and brushed whatever it was away, panicking all the while that it was a spider and that everyone could see it crawling out of my hair. Thankfully, it was just one of my curls leaning down to say hello, but the freak out that was going on inside my head took forever to calm down. Flash forward to yesterday. I spent five hours outside spreading mulch. I was hot and sticky and everything hurt. I’m in the shower letting the dirt stream off my muddy knees as I shove my head under the spray. I reach up to rub my hair and I feel something hard and bug like. IN MY HAIR! My hair has been the bane of my existence. Unlike most mixed-race folks or mixed-hair folks on TV, I can’t decide what I need to do to make it look awesome all the time. I’ve been bald and I’ve been full fro and I’ve been fried dyed and laid to the side but I’ve never been happy with it and likely never will be happy with it. My current hairstyle, read: situation is shaved on the sides and dreadlock-ish twists on the top. Husband likes to call me Criss Cross and get real close as if he’s going to kiss me and ask me if I’m going to “Jump. Jump.” Husband is an ass. Anyway, I’m in the shower trying to get the sticky day of sweat and dirt off me. Our “master bath” is a tiny pink horror with a tub shower situation, a pedestal sink and a toilet in about five feet of space. Fact: I’ve never been able to master showering without getting soap in my eye so I don’t even try. I keep my eyes closed as I wash my hair and shave my legs etcetera. Every time I do open my eyes, I get soap in my eye and spend the rest of the shower cussing. So, I’m in the shower with my dreadlock-ish twists soaking wet and covered in shampoo and I find this bug like thing IN MY HAIR! My eyes are closed so I’m just feeling it and it has a hard creepy bug like shell. I have no idea what kind of bug it might be. We have sooooooo many here in Nashville. But, when you find a hard bug like thing in your hair, you have to open your eyes and see what it is. Notice I said “eyes” here not “eye.” I did not do the smart thing and only open one eye. I opened both eyes, promptly got soap in them and, despite my squinting, couldn’t see what kind of bug I’d pulled out of my dreadlock-ish twists. The combination of stinging eyes and possible bug infestation put me over the top. I was now in full freak out mode and full freak out mode necessitates screaming and doing a version of the “I have to pee.” dance but with more urgency. But I’m naked, covered in soap AND I can’t see due to shampoo blindness. What followed could have won me a million dollars on Candid Camera or Americas Funniest Home Videos. I can’t quite remember what order things happened in but at one point, I left the shower by the middle of the shower curtain. My rear end made contact with the sink. I tried to do the splits with one leg in the tub and one leg out and I’m not sure that bruise will ever go away. I gave the neighbors an up close view of my right boob as my left one and face made contact with the wall and my shin said hello to the toilet. Sounds that only dogs could hear came out of my throat. About thirty seconds of pure terror resulted in at least three weeks of bruise and muscle recovery. When I finally found a towel and wiped enough of the sting out of my eye to look at the bug like thing I had dropped in the bottom of the tub, I was more than a little relieved to find it was just a seed pod. A hard bug like seed pod but a seed pod non the less. That didn’t mean that I didn’t shower, scrub and scour myself clean enough to preform surgery naked. Or that I didn’t wash my hair over and over and over again to make sure it was bug and seed pod free and inspect every inch of my body for possible tick and spider hitchhikers and the like. Pretty sure when my head was shaved this never happened.
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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