My little five year old cousin, attitude going on 15, Ryanna, woke me and my grandma before the sun rose. She was a short, petite girl with blonde hair, almost white. She always wore a long-sleeved shirt and shorts. During the summer, Ry always wore her swim suit under her clothes. It was the middle of summer, and I was staying at my grandma’s house. My grandma is a fragile woman with stringy hair from dying it; my grandma loved buying me and Ry matching outfits for Christmas every year. Ryanna woke us up to tell us she wanted to get her hair done, and being the spoiled granddaughter she was, grandma told me to get dressed. Once I was dressed, we left.
We got to the hair place and I walked in; it smelled like fruity, sweet hair products. I looked around; there were shiny, black seats that could spin. The chairs were my favorite part about getting my hair cut. We signed in and Ryanna looked through all of the ripped up, old books of hairstyles. There were slick, greasy hair styles in the book, and the models had an Elvis Presley look. Grandma let her pick out whatever hair style she wanted. The independent Ryanna looked at the various crazy, wild hairstyles, then pointed at a mullet with a girl model. The girl in the book had an insane polka dot and striped shirt. We tried talking her out of it. “Why don’t you get something different, something more for your age?” But she wouldn’t change her mind about the mullet. It was her turn, so I sat down in the waiting room, waiting for her to be finished. I watched the hair stylist as she was snipping and cutting off chunks of her hair off of her cute, round face. When she was done, Ryanna hopped off of the chair and walked over to me and my grandma with a goofy smile. She loved her new hair.
Even though Ryanna liked it, her mom wasn’t as happy. When we got back to my house, her mom saw it, smiled a fake smile, and said, “Wow, it looks pretty Ry.” I was thinking to myself, when Ryanna looks back at this day she will be embarrassed, but she will remember to think about things before she makes another decision.