Monday, December 01, 2008

So, I'm in the Walmart today and saw the most outrageous mother/daughter pair--each with extreeeeeme two-tone mullets. Mom had clipper cut the front half of her head and peroxided it and left the permed caramel colored back hang down her back. Then, the daughter's had grown out a bit and she had the opposite color scheme--dark brown front and bleached perm down the back.

Well, I was like, Holy Crap! Get a load of those mullets! There was something almost Pictish about these hair cuts--the line bisecting their skulls was behind the ear so there was a sort of domed forehead effect. Like the Bene Gesserit nuns in Lynch's version of Dune--but sort of hillbilly. Suddenly, I looked around me and noticed how many other mullets surrounded me in Newport, TN.

Mullets aren't just Appalachia--they are a below the Mason-Dixon sensation--a true Southern classic. Mullets have successfully migrated from the South to the midwest to the Pacific Northwest. Hell, they are as Southern as KFC and you can't spit in Asia without hitting one of those. Yep, we are going for world mullet domination.

They are what happens when you grow out a nice head of hair and become conflicted about cutting it. The other way it happens is when you try to cut your own hair, but--you know--you can only really reach the front part. Then you walk around pretending you meant for that to happen. Before you know it, all your friends are doing it. Once it's done and you realize it looks sort of funny---the really long part next to the really short part--you run out in a panic to get a cheap perm because for some reason, you think curly hair will look less weird next to the short stuff.

It made me a bit nostalgic for my rattail. Yeah--I had an asymetrical 80's do with a foot plus long rattail hanging from the right rear. It was splendiferous. Sometimes, I think I feel it--Phantom Rattail Syndrome. I sort of cried when we cut it off.

8 Comments:

  1. Peggy said...
    takes me back to when I had a shag haircut. Similiar to the mullet. Lord I am glad I am too old to want to try the new do's LOL I can't get over the older women's haircuts and colors. Do they ever look in the mirror and see they aren't teenagers any longer? Hope you are feeling well.
    Kristin said...
    Mullets are really big here - we call those sorts of people 'bogans', but I couldn't tell you why. It goes with muscle cars, tight black jeans, ugg boots and death metal t-shirts.
    threecollie said...
    Ummmm, there are mullets up here in the north too, one of them on my head....
    Rusty said...
    I may cut my hair into a mullet. I'm still thinking about it.
    anne said...
    perfect description of my hair cutting dilemna...up these parts its cowboys, natives and retro dykes- not the walmart set, so in my books excusable.
    anne
    Kristin said...
    Hey Rosie,
    Noticing you're not around so much this week - hope you're ok
    Cappy said...
    Mullets. Wow. You don't see many of those in Cleveland.
    Galadriel said...
    After a tragic, shattering disappointment, I am no longer convinced that KFC is Southern.

    We were driving through Kentucky. We stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. THEY DID NOT HAVE SWEET TEA.

    Repeating for emphasis:
    A KFC. In Kentucky. Did not have sweet tea.

    I'm now convinced that KFC is some kind of Northern plot, or something. They have lost any right to identify themselves in any way with anything South.

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