Hey Jenny – remember when you were walking down the hall today between third and fourth period, and your long blond ponytail was swinging like a crazed hair pendulum, like a horse tail swatting away flies? Everybody knows ponytails don’t swing like that naturally, Jenny. What you are doing requires effort. We all know you are making your neck, head, legs, and other muscled body parts move in a way that facilitates ponytail swing, so stop it right now because you’re ruining naturally beautiful hair movements for the rest of us.
Every girl knows what you’re doing because every girl has tried to make her ponytail swing like that, with mixed results. All you have to do is stiffen your back all the way up through your neck and then shift your body weight from side to side in a subtle way while you’re walking down the hall, and pretty soon you’ll have a swish going that could slap someone in the eyeballs who’s walking the other way. I just don’t feel safe around your hair. These kind of movements are fun to do at home, in front of the mirror, but not bandied about in public.
Look, do whatever you want with your hair. I don’t care. Just don’t expect me to buy into your fantasy that your beautiful hair just moves like that on its own, with no intervention on your part. I mean, sure, if you’re Medusa, maybe. But you’re not Medusa. You’re Jenny. Your hair isn’t a pile of living, writhing snakes. You have one fat, pendulous ponytail. That doesn’t make you god. And you swing it at everybody on purpose.
I wear a ponytail almost every day, too, and mine doesn’t flop around like a northern pike waiting to be thrown back into the water. Mine stays still and quiet, vigilant, and watchful. It’s because my hair has integrity, because I’m not forcing it to put on a show for everybody who’s just trying to walk by you.
Have you ever considered French braids? Maybe you should. French braids stick to your head and they don’t move and they definitely don’t swing into the jaws of a passing pair of scissors between third and forth period. Same with buns. Same with French twists. You have a lot of options, Jenny. But your option to assume I’m going to keep complicit in this charade has run out. I call bullshit on your ponytail swing.
I can see your rebuttal to this essay already, and the title is “Haters Gonna Hate.” Maybe so. Haters also gonna have scissors in their locker that they carry with them in case a hair whip comes flying at their eyeballs again in the hallway. Is that a threat? Not really. I think of it more as a fact of life.
So what are you gonna do next? Make your move, horse-tail, because I’m onto you. We’re all onto you, Jenny. We know. And we won’t be bullied into silence by your violently whipping hair any more.
