Bang Bang

As I watch the inauguration today, I am proud to be an American woman with bangs.

I have been waiting for this day for a long time. Fifty-eight years.

I have never been without bangs, due to my forehead being approximately three inches high due to my, evidently, skipping the entire family epoch in Poland and going back directly to The Missing Link. And as women knuckle-draggers have known since the invention of foreheads, a short one (forehead, not woman) must be disguised with bangs. 

When I was young and Mom was in charge of my bangs, I suffered the humiliation of the one-and-a-half inch micro bang. I still can't get Mom to explain her thought process with that. Maybe it was a Cold War thing, you know, confuse and repel the Commies with my coif. Or maybe it was a Mom-liked-her gin thing back in the 1950's. What I don't want to believe is that it was a Mom-liked-Karen-more-than-she-liked-me thing although there is a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

For one thing, Karen got a forehead. If giving one daughter and forehead and the other daughter two inches of fur between her eyebrow and her scalp isn't Exhibit A of Mom Loved You Best, well, I don't know what is. 

Oh wait. Yes I do.

Mom stopped smoking when she was pregnant with me. 

And if you think that is a good thing, consider this: my big sister is, like, 5' 2'' and very petite. She can fit her entire body in my underpants, I bet. I spent most of Kingergarten being mistaken for her bodyguard. I was heads taller than Karen. With a mustache and unibrow. I didn't date a lot in Kindergarten. 

Karen and Mom are pretty much alike. Blonde and small. Fit and active. I am more like my dad. Who is dead.

Still, now that the First Lady's bangs are all out and proud, it just seems, well, American to be sporting bangs. So I will not grow out my bangs. Ever. Even if my forehead grows five inches, I will not grow out my bangs.

Because then the Commies will have won.