The Girl with the B52 Hairdo

Madge was forever spraying her hair, ogling herself in front of that old, cracked dresser mirror. She liked that song, oh what was it? The Ronettes! Yes, "Be My Baby." The song they later used in that movie Mean Streets. That was maybe '62 or '63, I guess. Well, you know what became of Phil Spector. But, anyway.

So she ratted--that's what we called it when we were kids, ratting--it up into this great big beehive, B52 bouffant thing. And she was so proud of that hair, poor thing. And she never washed it out; just kept spraying and spraying and that thing was so high, and you could have started a colony or something on top of it.

Fashion change, of course. Styles change. Today, women like long straight hair. Some of them have no hair. They all seem to have tattoos and bones hanging out of their noses. Femininity seems to have flown out the window. But in the early Sixties, bubbelah, women still had glamour, still had style.

But--and let this be a cautionary tale--you have to take care of yourself, you know. Lemme tell ya'. Don't let your long, lovely tresses (or, in this case, your B52 bouffant) go uncared for or unwashed. Sinister things, even tragic things can transpire.

So Madge the Badge (We all called her "Madge the Badge," nobody ever really figured out why, except it rhymed), had the biggest damned bouffant hair of any girl at Chester A. Conklin Junior High, and so some girls were jealous. Some not. But, the tragic thing happened, and this is where it gets weird.

She had, apparently, been out to some place on lovers' lane, her and her boyfriend Sam. And they had been walking, sort of romantic-like, through the woods. And maybe holding hands. But, she mu st have walked under the wrong tree, because she carried something back with her that she hadn't counted on.

So one hot, miserable July day while everyone is sitting in class listening to Mr. Bronflowski go on and on about Caesar and the Peloponnesian war, someone notices a weird little line of...bugs or something, crawling across the center aisle of the class.

It was this goober-faced little creepy we called "Snotty Scotty." He bent low and got a good peep at the bugs. Suddenly he shoots up, looking green in his snot-dripping little face.

"Mr. Bronf! Mr. Bronf!" he says, gesticulating wildly, his arm shooting up and his fingers snapping.

"Scott, the bell's about to ring. Then you can go pee."

"No Mr. Bronf!" said Scotty, in his inarticulate frustration. "There=there's a line of icky spiders crawling through the aisle!"

The students all made that sort of gasping "huh" sound of wonderment in unison, and Mr. Bronf bent low to see, yes, indeed, there were a line of icky, gross black spiders marching up the center aisle of his classroom.

A few popped out of their seats and crouched low to get a better view.

They followed that icky black line. Down the aisle...and crawling straight up the back of Madge the Badge.

"Madge? Madge, ah..."

Madge just sat there, a curiously weird smile on her face. Her eyes were wide circles of empty. She said nothing.

"Madge? Madge, there's spiders crawling up your back! Madge!"

It was then that trickles of bright red began to streak down that so-white face. Spiders crawled out across her forehead and cheeks. Madge fell over sideways at her desk, hitting the floor with a solid thump.

Someone screamed.

Everyone gasped.

Madge's bouffant do began to writhe, began to pulsate as everyone backed up in terror. Then:

Poof!

Sounded like someone blew up a pillow case full of air before popping it. Madge's hairdo exploded, and a swarm of spiders came flying out across the room, covering everyone as they all tried to race out the classroom door at the same time.

Spiders everywhere, little icky whatchamacalits. Black widows? yeah, that was it. All over the floors and walls and bookbags and lunch boxes, and what not.

At the funeral someone who was there said that Madge looked as if she were weeping "tears of blood", right before she toppled off her seat. Yeah, reminds me, for some reason, of that old number by Leslie Gore. You know, "It's My Party And I'll Cry if I Want To." I know even someone young as you knows that old number.

So, yeah, that was the grossest, most disgusting day of all the days when we were kids. Poor Madge. They say they shut down the school for a week. They say they had to bring in a special cleaning crew to get rid of the spiders. They say that, now, Madge's ghost haunts the hallways, her bouffant B52 do still keeping her looking stylish in the afterlife. They say all these things. But, surely, a kid as bright as you doesn't believe that kind of nonsense.