It is official. I have gone crazy. What is the cause? Hair. "But Katy," you are thinking, "don't you have a head full of flowing, luscious hair?" So let me clarify...Hair not attached to a head has broken me.
It started this summer. I would get up around 5:30 in the morning, quickly change into grubby clothes, throw my hair up in a ponytail, and go make sandwiches for a few hours. At work, I would constantly notice something tickling at my arm. (Girls know what I am talking about. That pesky hair that is stuck to your shirt in just the right spot so that it is constantly rubbing against your arm, but really hard to reach.) But at work I am wearing gloves so I can touch the food. I can't just reach around to pick at the hair that is brushing against my arm. So I just have to bear it.
I started scrutinizing my back and shoulders in the morning and remove every detached hair I could find. It got to the point that if I ever felt a hair accosting my arm, I would have this compulsory need to get rid of it. My roommates can tell you about the night I freaked out during a card game because I would feel the hair, but COULD NOT find it, and neither could they (Hallucinations? Paranoia?)
So when I moved into my new apartment, this illness had already begun. It was stagnant for a while, but then I started to notice the hair that infiltrated the apartment, especially the couches. One day I was looking for the remote, and in stereotypical fashion, I stuck my hand between the couch cushions to feel for it. I shudder even now, thinking about it, but my hand resurfaced from the cushions with quite a bit of hair intertwined between my finger. It really was sickening and horrible. Our remote has a habit of getting lost in the couch, so I have had to dig for it several times since then. Same story every time: a handful of hair.
Another day I was cleaning my room, picking up all my clothes from the floor and putting them in my laundry bag in preparation to do laundry. I noticed that each article of clothing was covered in hair. SICK! Boy was I glad it was laundry day. After all my clothes were picked up, I got out the vacuum and sucked up all the hair in my area in front of the closet. I decided to vacuum a little in front of my bed, so I kind of moved my roommates things to the side. Well, underneath her stuff was more hair. A lot of it. I couldn't take it. I picked up all of her stuff (which was actually quite a bit of stuff. Sorry Katelyn) and put in on her bed, and vacuumed up all that hair.
Fast forward a few weeks, and with each day I am becoming more and more aware of the hair covering the couches. I am not even kidding when I say that on more than three occasions I have sat down and discovered a ball of hair stuck to the couch, or attempting to transfer itself to my pants. Each time, pinching the hairball between my thumb and forefinger and holding it out in front of me, I promptly throw it away. One night my roommate vacuumed the couches. It should have made a difference right? Well our couches have SO much hair that I could barely tell the difference. I was still able to pick off a handful of hair, and that was with just the hair that immediately caught my eye.
After a time, I wouldn't even look for the remote anymore. I would just sit in front of the TV, changing channels, rather than touch the couch cushions with my hands. One day, during a two hour period set aside for studying before a test, I lost it and spent 45 minutes vacuuming and removing hair from ONE couch cushion. See, the vacuuming wasn't really working, so I got a comb and started scraping the couch cushion. It helped, but not that much. While I was on my hands and knees in front of the couch, I was able to see close up just how much hair is on the couches. Seriously, as I was looking along the front of the couch, you could see the MANY individual strands sticking out from the front of each cushion. Lets not even talk about the hair that dwells in the area where heads actually touch or come close to the couch. It is actually better if I don't think about it much.
But really, what is up with these couches? When was the last time they were vacuumed? Did the girls before us vacuum it? What about the girls before them? All I know is that unless one of my roommates sheds an inhuman amount of hair, there is waaaay too much hair on those couch eseven for 6 girls in a 3 month period. We were on the list to get new couches, but apparently there was not enough couches for our apartment, so I am stuck with the couches who have pushed me over the edge of sanity.
It's my theory that all the hair has mutated the couch so that it now grows hair of its own.
Anyway, I think I will be permanently OCD about hair for the rest of my life. Maybe I should consider therapy...
5 comments:
OH katy, just wait until you have a child one day and discover a wonderful little post partum phenom involving your hair falling out at a rate that would make most people bald, or at least you would think. Imagine pulling fistfuls of hair out of your head every time you shower, and then another fistful every time you brush your hair. And then it is still all over everything. I guess the moral is: don't come to my house anytime soon. I should have collected it all and dressed my kids up as hairballs for Halloween.
Remember how much I shed, in comparison to you? I guess you should be grateful that I don't live there, too :)
And be grateful that you don't have a cat, whose hair manages to fly around in the air, and at inopportune moments, lands right on the bite of food you were about to put into your mouth.
Maybe I should rethink my desire to have kids...
I did live with Midge for over ten years and her hair had the strange habit of doing exactly what the cat's hair does. I used to joke that for years after Midge died, we would still find her hair around the house...Actually, it is amazing I didn't go crazy before this. I guess that is commentary on just how hairy these couches are.
I had no idea...maybe you should listen to the song "Hair" (The Cowsills, 1969)over and over again. It will definitely make you love hair in all it's varieties. I can hear some of the words in in my mind as I type...a home for the fleas...a hive for the buzzin' bees...as long as I can grow it...my hair!
katy, csn i just say how much i love and miss you? I had a hard time not laughing out loud reading that (i'm in the asl lab and school and can't really be loud for fear the hearing people may think i am crazy). But seriously, my sister sheds like no other, and even when she is home for a week our bathroom is covered in her hair! Anyway, thanks for the laugh( i'm not laughing at your sickness, just the commonality with yours and my sister, even though yours is much worse. i especially liked the part where you would not look for the remote and just sat in front of the tv to change channels).
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