Totally Crazy

Today is "Crazy Hair Day" at Tovashal Elementary School.

<---- Here are Cassie and Jillian's 'dos.

After the kids got their crazy hair-dos this morning, Jonathan drove them to school. But as the car neared the grounds, Cassie and Jillian noticed that NO ONE ELSE had crazy hair.

The conversation that followed transpired thusly:

Cassie: "I don't see anybody with crazy hair."
Jillian: "Are you SURE it's Crazy Hair Day, Cassie?"
Cassie: "My friend told me it was."
Jonathan: "You're friend?!"
(Jonathan quickly calls Jaime on his cell phone.)
Jonathan: "Hey, we're sitting in the car outside school and nobody has crazy hair."
Jaime: "What?"
Jonathan: "I'm telling you, there are kids everywhere, but they all have normal hair."
Jaime: "I'm sure there are other kids there with crazy hair, you just don't see them yet."
Jonathan: "I dunno. A kid just walked by with totally normal, respectable hair. Hey, maybe I could jump out and mess his hair up..."
Jaime: "Probably not a good idea."
Jillian: "Dad, I see a girl with pink hair!"
Jonathan: "Okay, apparently, there's a girl with pink hair."
Jillian: "And that kid has a mohawk. Let's go!"
Jonathan: "All right, maybe this is a false alarm. Bye."
(Jonathan hangs up)
Jonathan: "Okay, we've got kids with pink hair and a mohawk. You and your crazy hair are good to go. Unless that kid normally has a mohawk."

Jillian is ready to go, but Cassie isn't. Cassie looks out at the playground full of normal-haired kids and hesitates. Then she looks at Jonathan with imploring eyes, and in that second, Jonathan's heart melts with empathy a thousand, million times.

Jonathan: "What do you want to do? You want to keep your crazy hair, or do you want to go home, we can fix it and you'll be a little late?"
Cassie: "Can I take my hair out? It'll just be a little poofy."

So she does. Cassie pulls out the plastic cups making her hair stick out and climbs out of the car to go to school. And then something weird happens...

Suddenly, every Crazy-Haired Kid in the world comes out of the woodwork. All over the playground, we see green hair, purple hair, hair with sparkles, hair sticking straight up... It's a sudden cornucopia of Crazy Hair.

Everyone has Crazy Hair . And they're all having a fun, crazy time.

Cassie sees this and visibly slumps. She just ruined her crazy hair-do. And she doesn't know how to fix it again. Neither does Jonathan (for Jonathan only knows how to do his own patented "Cool Hair").

Jonathan watches as a disappointed Cassie trudges into the playground of crazy kids with her no-longer-crazy-hair... and Jonathan's heart simply breaks. It's a shattering of sympathy that starts in his chest and tinkles down into his entire body, until every fiber of his makeup feels fractured and broken.

As a parent, you never want your child to be in pain. Physical, emotional... it doesn't matter. A parent wants their child's entire life to be bliss, for their every moment awake and asleep to be perfect, happy and trouble-free. The very thought of pain of any kind for your child is ... painful.

And here is Cassie, first excited about a fun day, then fearful that she'll be alone and ridiculed in her fun, then utterly devastated when she sees the fun after all, but it's too late to go back.

What's a parent to do?

Luckily, Jaime knows Crazy Hair (her hair used to be five inches high). Jonathan calls for reinforcements and Jaime rushes to school with brush and hairspray. She finds Cassie sitting sullenly with her totally normal, totally boring hair. Jaime works her magic, and in minutes, she has re-crazified Cassie's 'do.

And like that, all is well. Cassie grins and runs off to play with the Crazy-Haired kids.

Fun Fact:
If a child's sadness causes their parent's insides to shatter, a child's happiness is like organ Superglue.

What a morning.

Kids. They're enough to drive you crazy.