Everyone needs a wig

Thank goodness for humor...for the power of perspective. (My best H.P. of all, humor power!)

With my mom, appearance is everything and substance is.. what remains.

And so, enter me. I am pretty much "what you see is what you get." I've been graying, since my mid-20's... beginning from the temples.. and speading.. by now have little original color remaining even at the hidden nape of my neck. Rather than fight, I have chosen not to color.

Interestingly I have been complemented by friends, often enough to believe it is not just kindness.

This brings us to Friday morning, when a friend at my house spontaneously told me how great my hair looked. We got to laugh about the whole hair gambit folks can choose to go through.

Anyways, right after my friends leave, the phone rings. Private caller. MOM. I am in a good enough mood and I have things I will do shortly so I trust myself to carry on a conversation that will end whenever I am ready. I pick up the phone.

My mom doesn't take long to get to her point. "I got your photo. Thank you. That was a nice picture of all of you." This is a good start.

Then she drops the bombshell. "You know I have been thinking, I'd like to buy you a wig."

I am at the kitchen sink and I almost drop a knife on my foot. "A wig?" I am already laughing. Of course, it was hard for her to witness my hair in our family photo and feel comfortable. I should still be blonde in her eyes. My mom still is; she's worn wigs of all lengths and shades for the past 40 years. She is so uncomfortable with gray, that she wants to cover up her daughter's gray hair with a wig, too!

"Your hair looks really nice," she says, too late.

"Yeah right, mom," I say. I'm really laughing now. "That must be why you think I need a wig."

"Oh, Zena, really, " she protests. " I saw some wigs that look just like your hair."

OK, so my hair MUST look nice if she wants to give me a duplicate. But do I really need two heads of hair? Smarty me, I have to ask, "Why would I need a wig that looks just like the hair I already have?"

"Well, your head isn't covered properly! Isn't it cold there in January?"

"In New York state maybe. Mom, I live in Georgia."

"People out here wear them. They are nice and warm."

Still non-plussed, I protest. "A wig isn't a hat."

"People wear them like hats," she insists.

Now, I have turned off the water and am holding my side, I am laughing so hard.

"Really mom, you have created the weirdest picture... You have me imagining everyone in Seattle wearing a wig like a hat!"

She's speechless. So am I, and my side is beginning to hurt.
Finally I can speak again. "Isn't a wig a bit expensive to be used for a hat?"

"Didn't you know?" she says, "Good hats cost money!"

It is time for both of us to give up as I continue to chortle, knowing she is UNDENIABLY uncomfortable with gray hair.

Zena, and powerless over people, their perceptions of me and... wigs.