What’s Your Story — The Mullet and The Feline

I’m not too proud to tell you that in 1998, I got a mullet.

Yup. You got that right. The short, feathered hair in the front, long and wavy in the back.

Let me explain.

I got dumped. But that’s not the story.

The story is, I needed a haircut. I had $12. I had a friend named Carrie who wanted her hair cut, too. We went to one of those strip mall hair cutting places.

“I’d like a ‘bob’,” I told the hair cutting guy.

I should have known better than to sit in his chair. He donned a mullet (not the kind hipsters have,  by the way).

“A bob would be all wrong for you,” the hair dude said.

He turned me from the mirror (red flag #2) and began snipping away.

“Okay. You look great,” the dude said, turning my chair around. “Go pay at the counter.”

I looked in the mirror and saw something that I hadn’t seen since 4th grade; me with a mullet.

“This isn’t a bob,” I cried, touching my hair.

“You look beautiful,” the dude said. “Pay at the counter.”

Next, my friend sat in the chair.

“Can you make me look like Faith Hill?” she asked. (this was when Faith Hill had the short, choppy hair).

Now, I’ll never understand why Carrie let him touch her hair after the scalping he gave me…I think that confuses her, too.

On that day, Carrie and I became mullet twins.

No. There are no pictures of that.

We went to Carrie’s house, crying and laughing and looking (choke) fabulously 1983.

Sitting on her couch, I bemoaned my terrible haircut. How would I EVER re-enter the dating world in this state? No guy would want to run his fingers through a mullet.

Carrie’s cat, Chexers entered the room. He seemed concerned about my grief. He looked at me with wide eyes.

I cried out, “Oooooh, my haaaaiiiirrrr!”

My voice may or may not have sounded like a cat. In heat. And Chexers didn’t like the sound. He pounced. Right onto my mullet.

Biting and scratching and hissing, Chexers took out his full wrath on my mullet. I tried to get him off my head. He dug his claws into my back and commenced his lionesque attempt to murder the terrible haircut.

Eventually, after many screams and hisses and mullet hairs pulled out, Carrie was able to remove the cat from my mane.

“I think you scared him,” she said.

We cleaned up the blood from my arm and hand and back. Smoothed the party in the back of my hair (which now resembled a party that you call your mom to pick you up from). Let me tell you, that feline tore me up. Big time.

Back in the living room, we noticed shards of cat nails on the floor. Nasty, right?

“It’s been a really bad day,” I said to Carrie. “Nobody is going to believe this all happened today.”

But it did. It really did.

Need proof? I’ve got the (now faint) scars to prove it.

Oh, you wanted proof of the mullet?

Um. No thank you.

(NOTE: A month later, I started hanging out with this super handsome guy. I hid the mullet by pinning it up with sparkly hair clips. That handsome guy eventually married me {my hair was no longer a mullet at that point}. We celebrated our 9th anniversary yesterday. The man has loved me through many hairstyles. Fortunately, the mullet never made a return to this head.}

(NOTE 2: This post is in memory of Chexers, who lived to be 19 years old. Wow.)

I’ve now shared three animal tales with you (ha ha…punny). One about goats. One about my Grandma’s dog. Now this one about a cat. Now it’s your turn. Tell me about a funny animal story! Or a (clean) animal joke. It’s Friday. During an election year. We could all use the laugh.