The Hairspray Murders

I was a child in the long ago land of the 1980’s when neon and spandex painted the scene. What a time! One thing that takes me back to that season of power ballads and Atari is hairspray. Under the main stairwell of my grandparents’ home in Tacoma, WA, there was a tiny bathroom. The lingering scent of my grandmother’s Aquanet and her cigarette smoke met me in that secret hideaway. It was my favorite room in the house.

As the 80’s ended and the 90’s took over, the power of hairspray entered my own home. Sweatin’ to the Oldies made its mark, and so did my mother’s hairstyle.

During the earliest years of my life, she wore her long brown hair straight. Natural. (Think Cher when she was singing with Sonny). But as the world advanced, Mom wanted change. She wanted volume.

To achieve the desired body in her poker straight locks, she instituted the following procedure guaranteed to supply height and body:

Step 1. Shampoo. Condition. Apply mousse to damp hair, then arrange it in a zillion little braids.

Step 2. Sleep in the aforementioned braids.

Step 3. In the morning, undo the braids. Admire the wavy effect, then destroy it. Proceed to rat that hair like they did in the doo-wop era. Your hair should stand up in salute.

Step 4. Take that can of hairspray and spray it like it’s the last spray of your life. Mom preferred Rave #4 (Mega Hold).

Step 5. Comb it all down into a “poof.”

Step 6. Add a chunky headband to accent said poof.

Step 7. More Rave #4 hairspray to set it all in place.

Tada!

As Mom established her voluminous routine, you learned to avoid the vicinity where she was working, as a careless passerby might end up with a mouthful of aerosol.

In 1995, our family made a major life change by moving to Timisoara, Romania, the birthplace of the country’s revolution. Romania is a country of beautiful people. What a privilege to spend formative years there. Being that my mother had perfected her hair routine, she made sure to stock up on her beloved #4 before we set off. The Romanian cockroaches had no idea what enemy force was preparing to infiltrate.

In addition to beautiful architecture and delicious cabbage rolls, Timisoara had cockroaches-something we Pacific Northwesterners weren’t unaccustomed to. If you happened to get up and flick on the bathroom light around midnight, you might spot a rogue citizen scurrying across the cold floor.

Enter: My mother. She hated creepy crawlies; cockroaches were at the type of the list. So what did my inventive mother discover? If you spray them with Rave #4, this product has the power to shellac their little legs. The cockroaches are frozen long enough for mother to scoop them up and kill them. Tada!

As my nephew reminded me this Thanksgiving, cockroaches can survive a nuclear holocaust. But they could not survive my mother, as she and Rave #4, took the victory. And so, to all the avid hairspray users across the globe, know that there could be magical ways that you, too, can use your creativity to change the world.