116 Days

For those of you who don't already know this, I don't brush my hair.

You read that right. I don't brush my hair. Like, ever. It gets all frizzy. There's too much static electricity going on in that mane of mine if I brush it, so I don't. Ever. ... In my defense, I do comb through it when it's wet at least once a week, so it's not a total tangle-fest in there, but brush it? Never.

So, now you know. I don't brush my hair. Judge me if you want. I'm good with that, it's been going on for years.

In fact, let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, I lived in Provo and there was a boy in my ward that looked an awful lot like Bob Saget. (I mean, an awful lot. I called him Bob, because he looked so much like him. And he called me Rosie, because back in the day when Rosie O'Donnell would do her hair and make-up for her daily talk show, I used to get told that I was a ringer for her.) Anyway, Bob and I were friends. Good friends, as we were both celebrity look-alikes and had a penchant for making fun of the weirdies at ward prayer. In one of our many late-night discussions of things personal, it came out that I don't ever brush my hair. He was fascinated by the non-brushing of the hair. (In all reality, most people are. I have perpetually had long hair, and there's a lot of it. Knowing that I don't ever take a brush to it makes people wonder how it's not a rat's nest.) Well, to Bob it was a thing of mystery. And to me, it was funny that it was so weird to him, so I totally stopped combing it out when it was wet, just to see how long I could go.

Meanwhile, summer turned into fall and Bob's girlfriend came back from wherever it was that she'd gone for the summer. In fact, as I recall, he went to pick her up. He got back into town on a Sunday and brought her to (drum roll, please) ward prayer to introduce her around. He marched her right up to me, all excited for the two of us to meet and become instant best friends and as he said my name, she rolled her eyes and said something along the lines of "So, you're the one who never brushes her hair?" (in a very condescending tone, I might add). I just laughed and said something along the lines of "Yup, that'd be me". She was horrified. She looked right at my head and, sneering a little, asked how long it had been since I'd brushed my hair. (Apparently, Bob had told her not only that I didn't brush my hair, but that I was mid-challenge with him on exactly how long I could go and not even comb it out when it was wet.) I proudly told her it had been just over 30 days. She rolled her eyes and said that was gross.

Challenge. On.

Before, I'd been all over not brushing my hair just to amuse Bob. ... Now that I knew it bothered his girlfriend that I was a non-brusher, I felt strangely compelled to push her over the edge.

I made it over two months, as I recall.

(Meanwhile, Bob and the girl got engaged. He moved out of the ward - and out of my life - just before they got married and I don't know what ever happened to him.)

Every once in a while, I think back to those months of striking on the hair hygiene front and I laugh out loud and how stubborn I could be when I was younger.

... And then I remember how stubborn I can be now.

It's been 116 days since I vacuumed, my friends. 116 days. This time last month, I was tempted to break out the old Dirt Devil, but then I counted the days since my last vacuum and thought, "Why do it now? If I wait another week, I'll hit the 90 day mark." And now I'm looking at the 120 day mark on Thursday of this week.

Is it sick that I enjoy pushing myself against these weird time lines? (Probably. But the good news is that I don't shed as much as I would if I were a hair brusher. From that perspective, I'd like to state for the record that my carpets could be oh, so very much worse.)