By Rachel
Maureen hummed as she brushed out her waist-length, thick blonde hair. She had always loved her hair. Her last boyfriend had suggested cutting it short (after she got long blond hairs all over the passenger seat of his car), but she had immediately dumped that idea. She had also dumped the boyfriend, after he’d continued to make the suggestion long after she’d made it clear that cutting her hair wasn’t an option. She examined the ends of her hair, as she did most mornings. The split ends were getting more numerous; perhaps it was almost time to get one of her once-a-year trims of no more than an inch. Her dream had always been to have hair down to her knees, or even her ankles, but it never seemed to get longer than her waist. She pulled her hair into a low ponytail and headed to the grocery store.
She was examining the different brands in the mayonnaise section—she didn’t eat the stuff, but it made great hair conditioner—when she noticed her ex-boyfriend, whom she thought of as Haircut Boy, coming up the aisle. She didn’t want to talk to him, so she pretended to be too absorbed in a label on a jar of Hellman’s Mayonnaise to notice him. He stopped beside her for a moment, picked up a jar of mayonnaise, and then moved on.
A few minutes later, she was browsing the Lean Cuisine dinners when she saw her friend Katie. “Maureen, I love your new haircut!” Katie said.
“What haircut?” Maureen said absently, trying to decide between Ravioli Florentine and Chicken Carbonara.
“Umm, the chin-length one,” Katie answered. “I never thought you would cut it that short!”
Maureen stared at Katie, trying to sort out what she’d just said. Was this some kind of sick joke? She reached up to flip her ponytail over her shoulder—and screamed. “Oh my God, where’s my hair?” She dropped her frozen dinners and stumbled, the glass freezer case catching her. How was this possible? Wait a minute—Haircut Boy—had he had something in his hand? She sprinted for the condiment aisle. There, on the floor in front of the mayonnaise, was a long, blonde ponytail.