The Day I Almost Shaved My Head

     Several years ago, when we were still living in the schoolhouse and before Ian was born, we had headed across the street to my sister Rachel's house for some playtime.

It was summer.

It was hot.

     My sister had dog pens in her backyard. The flies were horrific and as a deterrent, Rachel had hung up multiple fly strips around her house. With two little boys in the house who were constantly leaving the doors open, there wasn't much else she could do about the problem.

     I had made a mental note of the placement of all the different fly strips and had done a remarkable job of avoiding them, mainly by giving them a four foot berth. I have a thing with anything "sticky". They taunted me all day. Their long mustard ribbons slowly turned in the breeze, silently daring any fool who came too close.

     We played and watch cartoons, ate snacks and drank juice, sat on the porch swing and chilled in the recliners. All in all, a wonderfully relaxing day.

I must insert here that my recollection of the events immediately leading up to this are fuzzy. I chalk it up to trauma.

     I don't know why or how I let my guard down, but for some reason (in hind sight, I can say whatever the reason, it wasn't good enough) I bent over the coffee table to help a child do something. I stood back up. Suddenly I couldn't move. The left side of my head was plastered with sticky, suffocating, tacky glue. My hair and face were cemented to the fly strip hanging from the ceiling over the coffee table. I grabbed the end of the strip and tried unhook myself, but the glue had adhered itself to my skin. Rachel took the end from my hand and as I leaned the opposite direction, she pulled it slowly off of me. Long strands of glue stretched from the strip to my face like some sort of alien creature emerging from it's pit of slime.

Once free, I tried to use a paper towel to wipe it off my face, but to no success. Leaving Lillie with Rachel, I drove home like a mad woman, gagging and dry heaving the entire way. It took 3 piping hot showers to get the glue out of my hair.

    Even as I write this, I am gagging and having to pause to look away from the screen, as if not seeing the words will erase the memory of that horrible day.



The ironic part: I hung two fly strips up in my kitchen today. All I need now is the Jaws theme song playing in the background.

Dah dum.   Dah dum.   Dah dum. Dah dum. Dah dum..