“Schools starting tomorrow Billy, now be a good boy and let me give you a quick lil haircut so you look nice,” says Mom.

My mind freaks out a bit and I do what I do best at that age and that’s to run and hide in the mudroom closet.

Ahhh, the smell of old wool instantly throws me back to a time last fall when I was alone, in my deer blind and no one is trying to hack my hair off.  This happy place, my brain vacationed me to, is abruptly curtailed with a nasty summons.  “Get yer arse in here ‘fore I hafta come en getcha, then I’ll be da one doin yer hair cuttin!” sez Pappy.

I plead, argue, whine, and snivel but the end result is always the end result.  My hair is cut.  No need to look really, it’s always the same, a semi bowl cut/crew cut that leaves the hair on my astounding cowlicks pointing in 3 different directions.  Top right forehead cowlick; NorthEast, Back right cowlick; East, Back left cowlick; NorthWest.

Spring steel would be easier to work with than my hair was.  Super tight hats to flatten the straw strands down?,  Nope.  Water?, yeah, right.  Hair Mousse?, only made it shine and straighter.

To school I went and there I was met with delight from kids with good hair who were aces at critical verbal jabs that stunned a pre teens mental growth.  A snippet of my wool hunting jacket to sniff would have served me just fine and plopped me down to my happy place but thinking that now doesn’t help me 35 years ago.

There was this one time, (at haircut camp), ha.. sorry, and my hair was cut via Mom and my brilliant resound was to adjust the length of hair coming out of the cowlicks to about an eight of an inch.

This ‘adjustment’ to hair length was done only once since a person cannot withstand 6 months of mental regression due to clever teasing classmates.

Throw in a pile of freckles, some front teeth that still weren’t bustin through the gums and the dog wouldn’t even play with me except when I was covered with old bacon grease.

Ahhhh, doze were da dayz I tell ya, doze days.

Yap, yap, yap and you are wondering where is the point to my blithering.  Well, these Post Traumatic Stress’s came back through an incident/incidents my offspring like for me to participate in.

Not unlike waterboarding, the mental haranguing pointedly directly at my sound mind is where my kids may or may not be purposely attacking.

Examples?  Ok, here’s a few:  They don’t shave but my razor becomes so dull I am sure they are using it to scale the rust off an old railroad spike.  “Why does it become dull all of a sudden?” I ask, their reply, “I dunno.”

Why would my small battery hair trimmers all of a sudden not work or be in pieces? (3 so far)  “No Idea,” they say in unison while looking at each other.

Why leave my new Ipad in the middle of the carpeting where people walk continually?  “Oops, yeah, I shouldn’t do that, sorry.”  Ghaaaaa

Here’s the Coup De Gras of my mental degradation and the reason I am writing this Novella.  Which, I reason, is a form of therapy to deal with the barrage of attacks on my well-being.

School was going to begin in a week so my precious daughter and I were going to attend the ‘open house’ for her inauguration to Sixth Grade Middle School.  Very fun and I was happy to go, however, time got away from me and I ended up running late.

The clock was clicking down and I had only a few minutes to shower, shave, and primp.  The shower starts well and I start washing off the day with one of 15 washcloths the precious ones brought into the shower.  I shave.  Actually, the razor simply pulls the hair off my face as I grit my teeth in a show of pain endurance.  The face is now a crimson red and the warm water only inflames the color.  Whew, shower is done and I scramble for clothes only to remember that the last time the mirror spoke to me it said my eyebrows looked like Andy Rooney’s but longer and thicker.

My eyes have let me down so glasses are currently a must to enlarge any detailed task I perform.  (Sidenote:  The only benefit to my 2.5 power glasses was my amusement and amazement the first time I looked down while in the bathroom)

It’s foggy in the bathroom so glasses aren’t gonna work.  No worries as I grab my plugged in hair trimmers that have a length guide on it.

“Whoaaa, why would ‘they’ unplug my trimmer?” I stammer.

I quickly turn it On then Off…, it works…, barely, and with such a low, slow noise, it’s got about 2.5 seconds of eyebrow trimming before its dead.

The trimmer is in my hand, in position, and I quickly turn it on.  SHWOOP!!!!, right side eyebrow is trimmed.  Trimmer is quickly thrown to left hand and SHWOOP!!!, left side is trimmed.  I marvel at my efficiency and grace to trim both eyebrows just as the trimmer dies.

The marveling quickly disappears as I just ‘feel’ that something is amiss but can’t see to figure it out.  Glasses are located and perched while the last bit of fog is wiped off the mirror and then I take a peek.

“ARE YOU F’ING KIDDING ME????!!!!”  “WHAT THE F’EDY F?” I scream out.

Well, as most of us know, there are guide settings on a trimmer.  A, ‘1’, means it’s going to cut it probably 1 millimeter, while a, ’10’, means it cuts a LOT longer.  I always, I mean ALWAYS keep it at ’10’.

Yep, eyebrows, GONE, but now laying grotesquely like a waterlogged hairy caterpillar on my sink.

All was not lost tho.  My previous self-marveling was merely a flop since the precision ‘trimming’ of the eyebrows only buzzed off 3/4 to each side, leaving a nice thick patch bridged together via my unibrow.

I’m now staring and psychotically laughing at my plight then zip down the stairs to ask my daughter if she sees anything different.  “You shaved.” she says.  “Keep looking,” I say.  A smile builds till all teeth are exposed and she is covering her face.  “Why did you do that?” she asks.  The son hears this commotion and comes in to take his shot.  He realizes the wound is too fresh and holds back his comments til later.  “Can hardly notice it,” he smiling says…

The dumb glasses set perfectly so the top frames are merely a highlight to accentuate the freshly mowed brow.

A hat is donned and pulled down low as we attend the 6th grade orientation and the same feeling I had some 35 years ago pervades my soul as I envision a few fingers pointing my way and then the subsequent laughter.

Suffice to say, none of the teasing happened and all is good until the next series of events is played out by my kids.

If I was a person who believes in conspiracies, I would believe all kids are invoking this same type of sick mental torture on their parents.  All you have to do is ask around.  I have, and from these parents mouths come mental abuses carried out by their kids that even the Guantanamo Bay prison staff wouldn’t use.

Do my kids or all kids do things with intent to inflict mental damage?  I optimistically doubt it but sometimes that little look they share or smile together…..

He who laughs last, laughs longest is a great Italian proverb that we will someday get to witness as my children’s children grow up.  I can’t wait……