New do for you?

Why did the caterpillar cross the sidewalk? To get to the other salon.**

Caterpillar haircut needed before Worm Show. No regular stylist. Go to no-appointment-needed fifteen dollar. 

We be with you sit down.

I sit down, check the magazines. Instead delete a shaggy collection of sent and received text messages.

Ready you sit. What we do?

Negotiating with beauticians has never been easy for me.  I envy guys who can say "buzz cut #3" and then zone out. There's always that temptation to say, "Well, just shave it all off 'cause it's hot on the playground!"

You want straight or fringy more feminine? 

Let's go with fringy. That's a good word. All I could think of was feathery.

Fringy brings to mind Sixties/Seventies suede hippie shoulder bags, macrame plant hangers, Twiggy and Yardley white lipstick  Like my flowered corduroy Nehru jacket, I shoulda kept that stuff and I'd be rich today. 

But babbling now. The stylist keeps a sharp object in her hand and between us, just in case I get more unfringed. Don't tell her I'm going next to buy four cartons of nightcrawlers at Academy. She doesn't call the nice young men in their clean white coats. 

Each worm has about two hundred segments.  Each segment has eight bristles that can be extended or retracted and feels a lot like the Velcro straps on your shoes.

Nightcrawlers can be eight inches long and live eight years. Most people don't distinguish between caterpillars and worms.

Heck, most people can't even figure out that Sonic styrofoam soda cups and Colonel Sanders chicken bones shouldn't be put in the recycling carts. I get irrational when wasps fly at me from the recycling cart. It's not at all "a little like having bees live in your head.*" It's so much more feathery, or fringy.

Origin: 
1325–75; Middle English frenge  < Old French  ( French frange ) < Vulgar Latin *frimbia,  metathetic variant ofLate Latin fimbria, Latin fimbriae  fringe

Related forms

fringe·less, adjective

fringe·like, adjective

fring·y, adjective

un·der·fringe, noun

un·fringe, verb (used with object), un·fringed, un·fring·ing.

** Oak Point Nature Preserve.

*  Sure, understanding today's complex world of the future is a little like having bees live in your head. But, there they are.

Happy Pollinator Week!

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder