End Times

When I was a very little girl my mother used to recite this poem to me: There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good she was very, very good but when she was bad, she was horrid. For some reason, which I don’t now remember and that’s probably for the best, I determined that I would not personalize any poems to my own children which might skew their self-perception. By the time I reached kindergarten, the curls had disappeared, having been cut off by the barber, never to reappear until I moved to the Northwest, two years ago, where it really is more humid than Atlanta, making my hair tendrilize, or maybe there’s another explanation. Maybe that curl, right in the middle of my of my forehead, is just another menopausal symptom.

I was checking out at the grocery store the other day, buying yet another carton of comfort food. The stubby receipt stood on the counter as though it was doing a back bend and the cashier had to smooth the curly slip of paper before I could sign the shopping evidence. “You must be getting low on the roll,” I commented, knowing from my own retail experience the unruly paper that is the telltale sign to change the cash register tape. And then it hit me - the reason my hair has become curly – I’m running out of tape.