Trophy #1

From corkscrew roots that twist and wind their way through my skull cap to plant their home in grey matter, out shoots my hair in lightning bolt tresses. Like poorly curled ribbon, some locks loop downwards in large lazy spirals while others form tightly-wound manic half-dreadlocks, and still others defy gravity slithering skyward like a weave from Medusa.
The mightiest hairdresser has been brought to her knees, humbled by her inability to tame the beast. Combs have been reduced to plastic splinters. Bobby pins have been sacrificed to it's dark abyss.
Only one thing has been proven to temporarily render the unruly tentacles docile. Water. Fully hydrated my mane lays limp and helpless, but inwardly plotting. Once free of its liquid shackles the tresses again become vicious free agents, obeying the goddess Eris and causing chaos wherever possible.
Over the years I have waged war with my pelt, claiming victory and admitting defeat in turn, but the first time I felt grudging respect for my furry frenemy was freshman year of high school.
One of the cruelest jokes my school's administrators played on the new class was to schedule the swimming unit for PE during the first month of school. So as you tried to navigate the awkward, oily waters of freshman year, you literally had to navigate the awkward, oily waters in PE...in your bathing suit. Not to mention for someone like myself getting my hair wet meant washing out all controlling products and adding a kicky zing of chlorine. In short, it was welcome to Fro Town, population -- me.
One day after swimming I was running particularly late and my hair was in rare form. Like a coarse wool cape streaming out behind me, my own bizarro super hero, I scurried through the quad which was densely populated with the first period lunch crowd. As I scrambled through the cliched cliques I felt my hair snag on some object. Without much thought I tugged my head forward, more concerned about reaching my next class on time, and then felt an unfamiliar weight hanging within the out of control mass.
Instantly images of gum, lollipops and all manner of sticky sweets popped into my head. Cursing to myself I flipped the mass of rapidly drying frizz over my shoulder and began raking my fingers through the coils trying to find the mysterious source of the new weight. My hand closed around something hard and oddly-shaped. I pulled and wiggled the object until it came free from my beastly locks and I looked down into my hand to see what the item was. There in my palm, entwined with a few torn out hairs, was a pale blue butterfly hairclip. There were a few seconds where time seemed to pause as my brain was unable to process the visual cues. This moment was shattered by a scream from back in the crowd I had just passed through. Where my brain had been sluggish before it now sprinted to come to the realization that my hair had just stolen a clip out of another student's hair and the implausability of explaining that to my peer struck me through with dread. Even viewing first hand the tangled mass of seaweed on my head, surely no one would believe someone's hair was capable of theft. So instead I beat a hasty retreat to my class.
Once out of danger the humor of the situation hit me, and I had to appreciate the bold audacity of my hair. Being an uptight square myself, I would never have engaged in something so wicked and lawless, but on some level I could still appreciate the unbridled wildness of this mobster mop. Sometimes I feel as though the intractable locks writhing out of my follicles echo my id. I can try to make them decent for society: slather them with mousse and gel and anti-frizz serums; blow dry them; curl them; cut them; dye them; flat iron them; or even chemically alter them through Brazilian blow-outs. But down to the root, to the DNA, they remain unaltered and, like the inevitable move towards entropy, their true nature asserts itself and the twining tresses surface, order cedes the ground to disorder.
For this reason, I have come to love my hair, and this first assertion of its lawless nature has remained as a cherished high school memory, with that pale blue butterfly hairclip sitting enigmatically on my trophy case.