Tuesday, December 12, 2006

In the Real World Some People Have Split Ends

I was just sitting there, minding my own business and taking notes in class when the girl behind me rapped rudely on my shoulder. I turned around quickly, thinking she probably had a question for me. She was one of those people who were always asking questions like, “Wait…What are we doing?” or “Wait… What page are we on?” You know, questions that make you realize teachers are blatantly lying when they say there is no such thing as a stupid question, or person. And then it happened. I began to turn back around and regain my focus after having responded, when suddenly I felt a tug on a large chunk of my hair.
My head jerked back a bit and I found myself turning back around to the questioner behind me. My head was cocked at an awkward angle because she continued to hold the hair tightly in her well-manicured hand. I looked at her not knowing what she was thinking. Had I said something wrong that had upset her? I couldn’t think of anything. Had I given her the wrong page number? She wasn’t one who had been known to retaliate violently. And then, with the smell of her lip gloss penetrating the air and her wispy dyed hair perfectly framing her face she said it. “You have split ends. You might want to get a hair cut.” And she let go.
I replied with a reply awkward enough to rival the positioning of my head just before, “I don’t know, maybe.” What else was there to say? I chose to say nothing more, but this one small comment started an outburst of emotion in my mind. How dare she tell me that! I was the one constantly helping her get through class in an appropriate fashion. Without me she never would have known what we were doing and likely would have failed, but outwardly I kept my cool. I needed time to think it over and to understand what my answer should have been without being angry. But there was anger inside of me. I wanted to scream at her and tell her that wasn’t her place, that I thought my hair looked just great thank-you-very-much. This anger lasted for nearly a week, until I recalled a memory from the summer.
In the summer, everyone had been excited about the Real World being filmed in Denver, and I along with everyone else participated producing in countless plots to meet the people, see the house, and get on the show. We wanted to see the house from the outside, so we drove by it. Multiple times. One time, a few of my friends even saw one of the roommates leaving the house and followed her in her car. They lost her at a red light, but they ended up with a good story to tell, and a good hope that they might make the show.
My best friend Meaghan and I wanted to interact with the roommates, so we devised a scheme. We would pick out a few of our friends, based on looks, and use them to bait the roommates either out of the house, or to get us into the house. We had to be careful in who we chose, they couldn’t know that’s what they were doing and they needed to be in their normal state of charm and prettiness. So naturally, we called Quint Brown and the girl who would eventually degrade my hair. The plan was all worked out, and the bait came through. After all the careful planning, it fell through, thanks to one of our more logical friends, whom I like to call Mr. 800 on his SAT Math, who pointed out that security might be an issue.
So when I recalled this memory, it was clear that I couldn’t be mad at the hair grabber. I had attempted to use her to bait the Real World roommates out of the house and get my 15 seconds of fame. And even though it didn’t work out, I felt a little bit guilty. The anger I felt when my splint ends were put on display, leveled out that guilt. My anger would likely have been matched by hers if she found out our intentions for her at the Real World house. Everything had seemed to even itself out in the end, even though it took a few months. The whole scenario, from summer and the classroom gave me hope that the old saying “it all comes out in the wash” is true. Lucky for me, she never found out about those intentions and my guilt was eventually extinguished. Lucky for her, she will have to wait a few months to sit behind me and see my split ends, because the next day I went out and got a haircut.

3 comments:

Kalee said...

the tab function clearly didn't work properly.

peterwall said...

My dearest Kalee, i enjoyed your paper with a passion that i can't seem to put into words. The images you gave the reader about your mental thoughts were completely priceless. I liked how it was similar to the reading we did in class today where Sedaris goes into his thoughts after making the witty remark to one of his students. Your connection between split ends and the real world was quite nice. I enjoyed hearing about Quint and your mission to meet the cast, although you sounded a tad bit desperate. A job well done Kalee.

bbushacher said...

Kalee~ I thought this paper was so well written, and I thought you did such a good job describing your feelings and also tying those in with the Real World. The words you used to describe everything made the story so great to read, and I just thought the way you were able to connect the split ends story with the Real World story was great. Good job!