There's a POV video floating around the Interwebz that made me laugh a little too loud. This guy is with his wife at what appears to be a Home Depot when he comes up behind her and plucks a hair from her head. Surprised and visibly annoyed, his wife turns and glares at him. But the guy is undeterred. He's on a mission.
With his hair sample in hand, he slowly walks the flooring aisle. Methodically and systematically, he compares that strand of hair to various floor tile samples. One by one, options are eliminated until he finds one that perfectly matches the color of his wife's hair.
He then declares to his wife that he's found their new flooring. Meanwhile his wife is giving him dagger eyes.
I felt this one soooo much.
When I sweep our tile and hardwood floors, they seem clean(ish). But as soon as I make one pass with a broom, I've somehow gathered enough of Andrea's hair for a bird to make a nest. Apparently, our floors are tinted perfectly to camouflage her shed hair's presence.
These days I just roll with it. But getting used to her shedding hair took years of desensitization. When we first started dating in Auburn, her hair wound up all over the interior of the 'Stang. I was pretty fastidious about the car's upkeep which involved regular cleaning. What used to take a quick 15 minutes now dragged on interminably as I could never seem to get all her hair out of the carpeting.
For the most part, in those early days, Andrea's stray hair was just a hit on my undiagnosed OCD - no harm, no foul, and my new normal. However, there was at least one occasion when it could have had some repercussions.
During one quarter, it was our drill day within NROTC. Since it was winter, the prescribed uniform was winter blues. Guess what stands out like a neon light against a dark uniform? This day, as I was hanging out in the unit wardroom waiting for the inspection, an upper classman passed behind me. When he happened to look down at my blouse, something caught his eye.
"Hey, Capuyan! Do you realize you've got a long strand of hair on your blouse?!" I immediately stood, and, still behind me, he removed the offending hair, examining it and holding it up to the light. "You'd have been gigged for this for sure." I tried to lighten the mood.
"Well, is it red?" There was a short pause.
"Actually, this one looks blonde."
It was undoubtedly Andrea's hair. Apparently red and blonde strands look similar to the uninitiated. Regardless, my off-the-cuff reply made me a legend.
"Pfft. As long as the redhead doesn't find out."
A chorus of "Daayumm, Cap!" rose from my classmates in the wardroom.
All these years later, I'm more reflective. Andrea's shed hair has been leaving its mark on my life for decades now. While it once triggered my neat freak tendencies, I now see these stray strands as gentle reminders of her presence. At least that's what I tell myself when I clean our floors.
Bruce Springsteen - Red Headed Woman
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