Wiglet Karma's Gonna Get You

Back when I was in Jr. High School, I had a friend named Maddie. Maddie was everything that I wasn't - petite and brunette with the most tragically uncool mother on the planet. My mom was the cool mom that all my friends loved. Maddie's mom was a lovely lady, but there is no other way to put it than to say that she was dumb as a stump and a tad old fashioned.

Being the cruel teenage bitches that we were, Maddie and I spent most of our waking moments making jokes about her mother's shortcomings. Sometimes to her face, sometimes behind her back.

One of Maddie's mom's more unfortunate deficiencies was that she was follicularly challenged. Don't speak PC? She was BALD! Almost shiny bald. The white, Italian equivalent of Lou Gossett Jr. That's how bald she was on the top of her head. And while she certainly did not deserve ridicule for her hairline issues, she did choose to address them in an unusual way.


OK, to appreciate this story, you have to put yourself in your best 14 year old mean girl mode (go ahead, I'll wait). Got it? OK.

One day Maddie and I were snooping around on her mother's dresser. She had one of those baroque looking dresser sets with the fancy bottles, ornate, carved brass hairbrush, filigree lipstick case, all very Maurice Villency. But there was something odd on the mirrored tray. Something that once I picked it up and realized what it was, made me shriek and send it flying across the room like a caveman's Frisbee.

I had laid my hands on "The Wireless Wonder Wiglet". How did I know what it's name was? On further inspection inside her mother's alabaster pin box, we found a small instructional manual on how to secure the wonder wiglet to your dome. I don't know how to describe this thing to you, except to ask you to imagine a yarmulke with tufts of dirt water brown hair coming out of it. It looked a lot like one of those petrified cats that they find at the bottom of the garbage pile on "Hoarders".

Needless to say, Maddie and I got insane mileage out of this event. Memorializing it in song, limerick, cartoon and regaling everyone that would sit still to listen.

But you know what they say about karma being a bitch?

Fast forward 31 years to this morning. As I am rinsing the hair color from the the heinous black and grey stripe that races down the middle of my formerly auburn head, I am treated to a parade of red hair, flowing down the drain with the rinse water. Seems that every time I color, I lose about a thousand hairs. And ever since the expected hormonal shedding after my last child (almost 11 years ago), my ponytail has been the diameter of a drinking straw, so I don't have much to spare.

It was a cruel joke that the universe played on Maddie's mom and is now in the process of playing on me. And while I am not yet in "Wonder Wiglet" territory, I can't exactly be all cocky about the fact that I might not need some follicular assistance at some point in the future. It's not a pretty thought. Red wigs tend to be the worst looking of the wig universe. Don't believe me? Look at this:




And this:

And this:

I'm sorry Maddie's mom. I have repented for my evil ways. Can I get a karma rebate? Please?