Toilet Paper Roll Beauty

by Shirley Bahlmann
Why is it that people (women, mostly) generally want hair different than what they were born with? If it's curly, they wish it were straight, if it's straight, they want curly. I'm guilty, too.
I'm headed for the LDStorymaker Writing Conference, and I'm a straight-want-curly girl. It's true that I have rollers. (The baaa-d sheep-wool perms of the 80's have thankfully gone by the wayside, except for the photos in the family album that make my boys ask, "Which one is you, Mom?" I point me out. "No, Mom, which one is really you?") The rollers I have are small, and I wanted big, luscious waves instead of tight, kinky curls. I tried to go the conventional route, I really did. I looked on the curler shelf at my store. They had some big rollers, all right, but they were nested with a bunch of medium, small, and tiny rollers. I would have had to buy ten packs to get the curlers I wanted. Then what would I do with the other sizes?
In the 60's, I remember my big sister used to roll her hair on orange juice cans. That was a little bigger than I was looking for. My hair isn't as long as hers was. What to do? What to do?
Then, one day last week, I was in that special room where it's always calm and peaceful, and my eyes lit on the perfect sized roller... a toilet paper roll. I was so excited I nearly jumped off my seat.
Last Sunday, I gave the toilet paper rollers a test run. I pinned the cardboard tubes to my nearly-dry hair and walked around like a medusa with coiled snakes on her head. When I was reasonably dry, I took the toilet paper rolls out and went to church. One of the prettiest ladies in our ward saw me, did a double take, and said, "Oooo, I love your hair!"
"Thank you," I said.
Some beauty secrets are better left secret.

Mission Prep?

By Rebecca Talley

My oldest child is a boy. He was born with a full head of hair. In fact, he had so much hair, many people thought he was a girl. Since he was a boy, I couldn't do much with his hair except admire it.

When I gave birth to my daughter, I expected another baby with lots of hair. Somehow, the hair fairy skipped my daughter. By the time she was 18 months old, she finally had enough hair that I could put it in barrettes and curl it. I was thrilled I could fix her hair after waiting for so long.

One night, we went to home teach a family in the ward (I was my husband's substitute partner). While we adults visited after the lesson, the kids ran off to play in another room. After a time, we called the kids back in and they sheepishly returned. Apparently, they'd been playing "barbershop" with my daughter as the customer and my son as the barber. Yep, he'd cut a large chunk of her hair off in the back of her head. All her pretty hair that I'd waited so long to fix was just a pile on the floor. I was not pleased, to say the least, and spent the better part of the next year trying to hide her shortened hair in a ponytail. It finally grew out and my daughter now has thick, luxurious long hair (she doesn't let her brother near it).

My son? He's serving a mission in Italy and wrote in his email a few days ago that he is now cutting his companion's hair. Hmmm. That gives me pause. My son, the barber? I suppose he was simply preparing for his mission all those years ago when he left his sister half-bald. Hopefully, his companion's hair looks better than his sister's did, or all of the mirrors have been removed from their apartment.

I guess they can't ever be too young to prepare for their mission.