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The maze of fabric bolts wound its way to the toys in the corner. The owner of the store greeted us as my sister and I sat down to play to wait until Mom was done shopping. She smiled. “Your girls have the most beautiful red hair.”
I crossed my arms. “It's not red, it's orange,” I humphed. Mom told me the story many times, and could only figure that I decided that may hair looked like my orange crayon, not my red one. Thus started my love-hate relationship with my hair.
Entering school came with the “Carrot Top”, “Red” and “You're hair's on fire” comments galore. There were two other redheads in my class, but they were both boys. One time, while our class was singing for the PTA, I got stuck standing by one of them. A lady sitting next to Mom knew I was her daughter. She leaned over and said, “I didn't know you had twins.” Humph. Just because we both have red hair doesn't mean we're related.
Later, kids added other things to the list of things to tease me about, freckles and glasses, but the hair always seemed to be the one that stood out. Why did God make me this way? I hated standing out. I just wanted to hide. Since my sister and I both had red hair, one guy on the bus decided to call us “Big Red” and “Little Red”. So the day he asked for a piece of “Big Red”, I hit him. Probably not the most Christian response I could have given, but it seemed fitting at the time. I asked God to forgive me later.
When I got to college, the teasing mercifully ended. However, when another student with red hair joined our little department, people instantly assumed we were twins, or at the very least sisters. Just because two red heads are standing together talking, it doesn't mean we're related. Why doesn't this happen to blondes or brunettes? Humph. We are truly one of the most minor minorities in the world, with only 1% to 2% of the population blessed with our scarlet tresses.
But, eventually what I felt a curse turned to a blessing. When I met my husband I found out that he actually preferred redheads. I guess God knew what He was doing after all. However, the naturally added white highlights have started to take over the red. So, I grab my RedHead brand baseball cap, pop it on my head to remind people that yes, I really am a redhead and proud of it. It's red, not blonde, humph.
Oh, and to this day, the lady from the fabric store still asks Mom about her "orange haired girls."
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