Beaver Tail - or - "I want to get my hands on that hair."

The Greek Church in Cleveland Heights had its festival weekend before last, so we went to see Aunt Voula, but only got a beer and some souvaki. At the height of the festivities, we bumped into friends who invited us to their area of the festival tables and ate.  Then, several of us saw "it".

It was an elderly white woman, in Jackie O sunglasses, her grey hair frizzing in the humidity of the last summer afternoon.  But it wasn't the hair on her head that caught our attention, and made my husband's eyes as large as saucers, it was the flat beaver tail of matted hair that went down her back.

Others in our group saw the beaver tail as well. It had to be nine or ten inches wide and flat as the great plains. 

One member of the group is in the beauty industry and does hair and makeup consulting.  She works with women who want a change, but can't decide what that change should look like.   Allison brought the wine glass (that they brought from home, along with the wine) and held the glass there as she stared at the beaver tail. 

I leaned in and said what are you thinking. 

Cooly, and not breaking her gaze, she said "You know damn well what I am thinking.  I want to get my hands on her hair and cut that damned thing off."

Another friend, Lori, joined in.  "Is that just one giant pancaked dread?"

"It's a very long beaver tail," said I, Cookie.

"How does one do that," asked Lori, "and why?" 

How long did it take, asked someone at the table who we didn't know. 

At that moment the woman stood up and the whole length of the beaver tail was revealed - it was below her ass.

I asked, "Was she sitting on it?" 

"Has she ever shat on it?" asked the woman I didn't know.  Lori started to giggle. I was appalled, because I was thinking the same nighmarish thing.

Allison, who still hadn't sipped the wine in front of her "I think it probably started out as a fat braid, a braid that got wet over and over, and instead of undoing the braid, over time, it 'felted' the hair."  She finally drank a sip, almost as if saying what she was mulling over in her brain released the hold on the wine. "Or it could be a fashion choice or a sign of her faith. But that is what commitment looks like."

Ok, that was the why and the what. So we moved on to speculation of the how.

Allison then addressed the question of hair growth.  "If you are healthy, human hair grows at the rate of about a half inch a month. Twelve months in a year, six inches overall.  I am assuming it's about four feet long, that's eight years.  The thing is..." Allison took another sip of wine, "but I think that felted hair would be even longer if it were possible to unsnarl it. So I would venture to say twelve, maybe twenty years.  Longer if someone trimmed it at some point."

The ick factor had kicked in by that time for Cookie.  Before I was agog, but now it was just gross. 

The conversation went in another direction, but Lori's eyes, and yes, my own, kept darting back to the beaver tail.  

Allison caught on and reminded us that it was her choice, but "I want to get my hands on that hair, but its not happening. I could cut it off and she would feel pounds cooler.  But that isn't happening." 

We outlasted the woman's party at their table, and she got up and left. 

Still, Allison remarked "It looks like something you would see in the Moss Eisley tavern.  But I will always regret not being able to get my hands on that hair..."