Chewing Hair

Sometimes people with great frustrations and limited connections with reality will sit in the corner and chew their hair. Or gnaw on their legs. This isn't a story about that. But it's close. In kindergarten at Sylvan, a very young Biff Spiffy found himself observing some strange girly behavior. One pretty reddish-blonde girl named Laura particularly intrigued him. Nobody knows if she had anything to do with his tendency to talk about himself in the third person. At any rate, I had a crush on Laura. She and her peers would regularly chew on their glorious long hair while coloring or learning the alphabet or listening to Miss V reading about Dick and Jane or cats in hats. Me, being of short boyish hair, had no idea why this was a good thing, but it looked tasty. So, one day while waiting in recess line, I wound up right behind Laura. Her hair was hanging right there next to me, all clean and shiny (and so far unchewed that day). It seemed reasonable to me to try the hairchewing. I didn't see what was so great about it, and apparently neither did Laura. Her indignant shriek was my first clue. "Miss V! Biff's chewing my hair!!" As a chorus of classmates sang 'eeew,' I was hauled by the arm to Dr. V's office (no relation - most Dutch names start with V). It was only my first year of Big Kid School, and I was already in trouble. As I waited in the sparse lobby, my eyes fell upon the Board of Education. It was strategically placed so that a waiting ruffian wouldn't miss it - a pine paddle the size of a canoe oar, with holes drilled in it so it would be sure to make a terrifying whiff through the air on it's way to contact with a young behindus. The school nurse (or secretary pressed into nursehood by default) was seated at her desk. I decided right then it'd be better to die in a puddle of my own barf than call on her for help. She silently looked at me over her horn-rimmed spectacles with the disdain. If she had spoken, I'm sure she would have used words like 'urchin' or 'nefarious.' I finally met Dr. V with much fear and trembling. His kind eyes and reasonable speech couldn't fool me; I knew this guy had a dungeon in wait for the first kid to cross him. I was determined to escape that office and never return. That visit went on my Permanent Record; if not in the official file, at least in the memory of my classmates. I do believe I put an end to the practice of public hair-chewing at that school for the rest of the year. Anything like this ever happen to you? No? Ahem. Oh, well... me neither.