I finally dragged myself to the salon for a much-needed pedicure yesterday.  It was somewhat shameful that I had let things deteriorate to such an abysmal state at the very height of Summer Sandal Season.  

For those of us who manage to get pedicures regularly (or semi-regularly) we are familiar with the drill:  the salon takes your name and then,  just to keep you entertained while you wait, they gesture over to a rainbow wall of lacquer and instruct you to, “Pick a color!”

That’s when things got complicated… 

Ordinarily I feel confident and clear-headed when I select nail polish.  After all, I had my “colors done” back in the 80s when a concept called, “Color Me Beautiful” was all the rage.  I was 17 at the time and hoped to be declared a Spring or a Summer,  but, alas, I was christened an Autumn.  I’ve long since resigned myself to dismal shades of brown and rust.  

The unending plight of a Ginger.  

But things hit a little differently yesterday when I approached the wall of hues.  I was all in a tizzy due to a humbling conversation with my 4 year old granddaughter that, quite frankly, shook my confidence. 

“I don’t like the nail polish colors you choose!” she offered, apropos to nothing.  An entirely unsolicited opinion, I can assure you.

“Wait – what?” I gasped.  “This color is fabulous!” I protested waving my chic nutmeg-colored fingers under her pert little nose. 

“Don’t worry!” She quickly assured me, “I don’t like my other grandmother’s polish either!”  (As if that was supposed to make me feel better!)  But, if I’m being completely honest, it DID make me feel better.  Much better.  If I’m not cool, thank God the competition isn’t either.  

Geez 

So, I chose a vivid cherry red, in hopes of scoring a slightly higher approval rating with the age-4-and-under voting block.  Red is for “Winters” and certainly isn’t a great color for me, but how much damage could it do way down there on my feet, I reasoned.  

All in all, my toes turned out fine.  Trust me, anything would’ve been an improvement.  But, the pressing question is – why do I care so much what this kid thinks? It’s not like she’s some Big-Time Beauty Influencer.   Case in point: yesterday morning when I was styling my hair she asked,

“Did you get bangs?”

“I’ve had bangs since before you were born!” I responded.  “But I did get them trimmed this week,” I added.  

“How many inches did they cut?”

“Zero inches! They don’t take off inches when they trim your bangs…” I explained.  “But they did cut in some layers to frame my face,” I added.  

In hindsight, maybe this convo should’ve raised a flag or set off alarm bells for me, but it didn’t.  I just thought it was a casual conversation between a little girl and her oblivious Grandmother.  I should’ve known better…

For this girl was on a mission. 

A few hours later I got a frantic call from her mother,  my daughter.  From the sound of her voice when I answered the call…I seriously thought someone had died.  

“Anna cut her hair!” she said.

“I’ll be right there!” I answered, hastily snatching my car keys off the island. They live just around the corner, so I only had 3 minutes in my car to plan my demeanor before I pulled into their driveway.  But it was enough time to gird my loins and counsel myself about my reaction.  

Do NOT laugh.  

Do NOT scold. 

And, for the love of God, Do NOT cry.  

If that sounds a tad over-reactive, it’s probably a good time to admit how hair-obsessed we are in this family.  We like it.  We aren’t those, “Less is more!” types.   We fall squarely into the, “More is more!” camp.  About most things in life, but especially HAIR.  

I was heartbroken.

 She did indeed cut in some bangs.  If you can even call them that.  I thought they looked more like forehead whiskers, but when I whined to my hip niece from Colorado, she informed me there’s something out there called, “micro bangs” and they’re en trende.  If that’s the case, then our Anna is the very coolest.  

I can’t profess to exactly get inside this kid’s head, nor to tell you what prompted this bold action. One thing that was definitely not on her mind was my admonition that we don’t take off inches when we cut bangs. She took off many inches. There is also a loosely held belief that when a woman decides to get bangs, she’s having some type of emotional melt down and addresses it by doing this radical thing to her hair.  

But, that’s not always the case.  I got bangs over a decade ago to cover the traitorous wrinkles on my forehead.  But this is such a foregone conclusion in female spaces, that when my Colorado niece scheduled an appointment with her hairdresser last year to get her bangs, she had to spend 20 minutes reassuring her stylist in advance of the first snip that she WAS NOT in the throes any type of existential crisis.  

There’s even a song about it.  The opening line of Miranda Lambert’s break up anthem, “Mama’s Broken Heart” starts with the words, “I cut my bangs with some rusty kitchen scissors!”  The rest of the lyrics confirm that she is indeed “losing it.”

Maybe that’s it.  Every now and then Anna tattles on her mother by blurting out,

“I didn’t get any “attentions” today!”

Or

“I only got two “attentions” today!”

So, it’s possible the “attentions deficit” was to blame even though she had just spent the night with me, without her brothers, and I had lavished “attentions” on her.

In the end, everything turned out fine.  Her mother took her to Target and purchased a plethora of 4” thick headbands to get her through a few days until they could get into the hairstylist, who fixed the debacle professionally.  Then, as a safety precaution for her End-of-Summer boredom and malaise, her cousin was imported from Dallas to give her non-stop-one-on-one “attentions.”

As the grandmother of both little girls, I beseeched my daughter to hide the scissors, lest they get the idea to cut her cousin’s waist long golden locks into a tidy matching Cousin Bob.   Anna may not be some Big Time Beauty Influencer, but she is undeniably a Big Time Cousin Influencer.  

And while we managed to barely squeak through this crisis, I’ll wager we wouldn’t survive the “Cousin Cut” quite so unscathed.  Not to make everything about me, but Grandma doesn’t need that level of drama, especially when I’m an Autumn walking around at the height of Summer with Winter toes.