“Not a real gun, right?”

“No, not a real gun… Unless there are real zombies.”

“Oh, okay. Good.”

But when I sat down to type it up, I realized that I’ve already used it already.

Which totally screws up my sense of creativity, let me tell ‘ya.

So instead of dazzling you with a spiffy title and whatnot and whosit, I’m just going to go ahead and tell you that this is a post about…

[da da dum]

Peer Pressure.

Yes, dear reader, peer pressure.

Peer Pressure.

That thing of lore that *supposedly* turns the world to gateway drugs, murder, mayhem, and forn-i-ca-tion. The thing that leads us down the wrong paths, around the wrong bend, and, occasionally, in my case, on the wrong guy. That thing that makes even the best of us into mere sheep.

We’re far too sensitive.

Baaaah.

I’ve been getting flack from the world at large about That Middle One’s hair since he turned two. With him now at six, I can’t tell you the number of times people have said,

“What a pretty little girl…”

“And what’s her name?”

“He? Oh, I thought he was a girl.”

“Little boys do not have long hair… you really should cut it.”

…all things that I’ve used to further strengthen my  “Reasons Your Mom Says That You Shouldn’t Listen to Other People” speech that I give my children at least thirty times per school year. Thesis of said speech being, of course, “The majority of people are stupid.”

(Yes. I tell my kids that people are stupid. You should totally appreciate the honesty.)

Which begs the question of why I’ve gone and done this:

Yes, I’ve gone and shorn my child. (Shorn, sheep… get it? Hehe. )

Truth be told, the kindergartners gave us all a bit of an unexpected pause with how often they brought up his long hair this past year– going so far as to push my kid in the girl’s bathroom at one point. (Thankfully, my kid’s got an awesome sense of humor and wasn’t bothered in the least by this.) And the teachers (outside of his classroom) didn’t seem to be much better, often referring to him as a “she” or “her”.

With That Middle One being OBVIOUSLY a boy in looks and stereotypical behavior, we, as a family, spent many a conversation laughing over the stupidity of them all.

So if my kid happened to look down his nose at you in a manner that clearly stated that he thought he was better than you… He was probably right.

And too mannered to call you stupid to your face.

So, again,  why did I cut his hair even though I swore I wouldn’t?

Was it the peer pressure? The grandmothers nagging my ear off? The school chums and the bathroom doors? The silly teachers without an eye in their head?

Nope.

It was a stray flea that found its way to my kid’s hair sometime during his bout of rolling around in the front yard like a puppy on crack.

A FLEA.

IN MY KID’S HAIR.

And quite frankly, dear reader, Judith freaked the FUCK out (profanity is fully proper under the circumstances, I assure you), loaded her kid in the car, and did not pass GO as she went straight to her sister’s house where we sat in a plastic chair on the front yard like a scene straight out of  You Might be a Redneck If... and proceeded to cut off my child’s beautiful, heretofore, sacred mane.

Paranoia… when Peer Pressure simply doesn’t cut it.

Quite literally, in this case.

Watching his shiny hair fall in huge clumps to the grass at my feet, hoping to make the best of a bad situation, I made the suggestion that an awesomely spiked  mohawk might be “just the thing”..  we could dye it blue or green or even pink… everybody would think it was cool… yada yada (Plus, I’ve always wanted a little mohawked kid or two to tote about all fashionable-like)…

To which my child promptly tilted his head, looked down his nose at me, and said,

No.

Which, to my ears, sounded awfully a lot like,

Stupid.

Which to my parental pride, sounded surprisingly like a

Boo Yah.

Which in my heart said that it’s time to set my grasshopper free to wreak havoc upon the world, methinks.

First grade better watch it.

And I keep asking myself whether or not the show is entirely appropriate for children…

On one hand, they can name the majority of the bones in the skeletal system, know how to use fabric softener to restore dehydrated appendages, and can recognize all of the occupational markers of being a violinist.

On the other, they’re starting to appear awfully unaffected by the sight of a rotting corpse.

And here I thought that when they told me motherhood would be about making the tough decisions, they were talking about things like breastfeeding or spanking or cloth-diapering…

You know…

Trivial shit.