The Haircut

Okay – I have been begged properly (see comments on Extreme Smith Makeover). I even had people desperately beg me who, for some reason, are nervous about leaving comments so they email them to me.

The Haircut:
We had a deal with Gabe that if he would go to church without complaint we wouldn’t try to control what he did with his hair. So he cheerfully attended church in various stages of dreadlock growth and varied hair color.

Gabe as Baby New Year for our 2008 party.

I’m pretty sure some people in the ward talked. Like this:
“Ooo, have you seen the Smith boy? Why don’t they just cut his hair while he sleeps?”
“If that was MY son…”
"His hair stinks. No, really! It smells rancid."
“Why do they let him wear diapers to parties?”

But mostly people rallied around and gave him lots of wonderful attention and reached out to him. You know how there are a few men who pay attention to the kids who need extra love? They noticed Gabe.

Now- most of you may be thinking how brave I am to post about this in front of millions of my readers. Won’t Gabe be mad at me for talking about him? I can confidently say, no he won’t be mad, for 2 reasons:
#1. He has a great sense of humor and can laugh at himself.
#2. He never ever reads my blog.

One week before Gabe’s Eagle Court of Honor I couldn’t take it anymore. He spent all his time dreading his hair, looking at his hair, talking about his hair, and then dreading it again. And it smelled. I sprayed his head daily with Linen & Sky Febreeze. I could smell him before he walked into the room. And I couldn’t imagine an Eagle Court of Honor in dreadlocks.

This is what it looked like when Gabe would dread. He would rub his head over and over and over, twisting, matting and knotting his hair.

So I complained to The Fixer (roland). He came up with a wonderful fix. His plan was to offer Gabe $100 to cut his hair the way we wanted it. It was perfect, Gabe was broke and moving to Provo (providing motivation for easy cash) and the original contract regarding cheerful church attendance would still be binding.

We called a conference in the office (the place we use for parent/child serious conversations). Roland explained that he had a way for Gabe to make $100 in 1 hour. Gabe was all ears, then Roland explained about the haircut. Gabe laughed. No way was he gonna give up that freakin’ awesome hair for mere cash. He wasn’t a sell out. No way.

Then Roland pulled out a fresh crispy $150 and put it on the desk and said, “We’ll just leave you with this so you can think it over.” We left the office crossing our fingers.

TEN MINUTES later (much quicker than I thought it would take) Gabe came out all smiles and said. “I’m in.”

And there was much jubilation.It helped that Jessica, the stylist, was about as sweet as can be.

Half of the dreads are gone and Gabe is feeling better already.My apologies to those of you who are trying to eat while looking at this picture. This picture is gross. See how damaged his hair is from being knotted? And it looks dusty because it is full of 6 months worth of dandruff, lint and gunk. You can see his scalp because those patches are where the dreads pulled out hair. yuk.

The cut took 1 ½ hours (yes, I gave her a huge tip). At first he wanted to comb out each dread but that proved too painful so we just cut the whole thing off. He saved 2 dreads for his scrapbook and as a good luck charm. It was grosser than you can imagine to see those 5 inch dreads sitting on his dresser. I threw them out ASAP.

Now he smells sweet, doesn't dread his hair all day, still gets lots of attention (for being funny, smart and handsome) and looks like the wholesome, hard working, upstanding young man he is.

3 Generations of Eagles
Clean Cut Gabe, Grandpa Wade and The Fixer with their Merit Badges