Bad hair day

Someone recently commented on how long my hair is. I used to wear it up most of the time, so many people never knew that it’s as long as it is and are often quite surprised to see it when I wear it down. Recently, I have been wearing it that way a lot, and except for a trim now and then, I haven’t cut my hair in decades. Until recently, that is … and it WASN’T intentional! Fortunately I only lost a few inches on the ends, but I had quite a scare in the process! Here’s what happened:

I was vacuuming … I had really gotten into the cleaning mode with a passion and was going to town on the carpets in my little log cabin. Then fatefully, I bent down to turn off the vacuum. The beater brush was lying alongside it, brush side up, and unfortunately my hair was down. Of course you know what’s coming next: It got sucked up in the beaters and before I knew it, the entire length of my almost waist-long hair was wrapped up and coiled around the inside of the vacuum brush attachment, which was now tightly wound up near my scalp! I was home alone, but the good thing was that I didn’t panic too badly, and had the presence of mind to turn off the vacuum and detach the beater brush from the long wand. However, the vacuum attachment now seemed to be growing out of my head and no amount of tugging and pulling would help it come loose. My cell phone was in my pocket, so I called my husband. He was a good first choice since he’s almost always on his cell phone and usually easy to reach. No such luck this time though … straight to voicemail. Ugh. Then I called my future daughter-in-law Dana, who was a sweetheart and said she’d be right up: “Don’t worry … help is on the way!!!”. She pulled up minutes later, and by this time I had taken a screwdriver to the attachment and somehow managed to take it apart; but the tough part of trying to unravel it all remained. What an ordeal. Eventually I became detached from the contraption, although an awful lot of hair remained in the brushes after I made my escape, and a clump of very long hair resembling a tiny horsetail was the souvenir that will remind me never to ‘let my hair down’ when I clean again!!