It’s picture day. <Cue old western showdown music- tumble weed rolls by. Sun is setting. Son and I step out to face each other in the dusty ghost town.> We’ve already had the “I’m doing your hair and you’re wearing what *I* want you to wear” argument. <more showdown music> He sees my evil squint. He sees my fingers flicking above my weapon. DRAW! “I’m doing my own hair.” “Like hell you are!” I think to myself. I let him go in the bathroom and start smoothing it down. <cue showdown music. enter cactus and horses.> I step into the light of the bathroom. Brush drawn, squirt bottle aimed. “NOOOOoooooooooo!” he yells. I shoot. “NOOOOoooooo MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM! I WANNNNAAAAAA DDDDOOOO ITTTTT!” He’s cornered and his hair is soaking. He’s blinking the drips off his eyelashes. I whip out the hairdryer. (Note should be had here that I never blow dry it. Remind me not to do this again next year. Also he’s into the Goth look with all the hair combed straight forward. <shudder> Truly awful.) I decide that I should compromise on the hair. I like it combed back away from his face, he likes a Trump combing. I decide that the purpose of pictures is to capture how he looks at this particular point in time. So I blow dry it in a downward direction. Not forward, not backwards. I have unexpected results. A giant poof forms at the top of his head. “Moooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm!” he howls “It looks like I’ve got buried treasure under there!!!!!!!!!!!!” I try to suppress the panic. He’s right. He has buried treasure head. I pull out all available haircare products and use ALL of them. Cremes, waxes, hair spray, ALL of it. By the time he gets on the bus, his hair is in some horrific combination of a gothic pirate.

I holster my brush.  I am relieved we have both survived picture day and lived to tell about it. <end desert showdown music.>