The Worst Fashion Crime I Committed

The worst fashion trend I participated in has to be the fake hair ponytail. It was post mission (you'd think I would have been spiritually in touch enough to hear the Spirit saying, "Mary, don't do it!") but pre-marriage (if I hadn't gotten rid or it, there may have been no marriage) so it was probably 2000 or 2001. Those little kiosks were popping up everywhere surrounded by young girls all sporting gorgeous long ponytails, which all looked suspiciously similar--like mini mall Stepford Wives. Now I've never been able to have long luscious locks myself. My hair is pretty thin, so when it gets any longer than my shoulders it's just a stringy, dull, split-end nest. But as I stared at the swishing manes at that mall kiosk, I knew that my moment for shampoo commercial hair had arrived. Now I, too, could look like I had just stepped out of a salon. As I remember, I didn't have any money so I worked out a deal with my sister Liz, and before I could say, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!" I was walking out of the mall with my own little color coordinated hair ball. And I wore that thing with pride--to church, to work, to school. To my husband's credit, he even dated me with the fake ponytail. I commend the courage it took to do that. I can't remember what brought me to my senses and made me stop wearing it. My best guess is that I changed my hair color and it no longer matched. Interestingly, that did not stop some people from wearing theirs, but that story belongs to a post titled "The Worst Fashion Crime Committed by Others." So imagine my surprise when cleaning the closet the other day, I discovered my once loved ponytail. Grace was with me and thought it was a dead animal so she screamed and ran away. Once I convinced her that it was just hair and didn't include claws or teeth, she loved it. We've even found a new home for the fake ponytail--the dress-up box.