TO WET OR NOT TO WET
It was the second home we rented when we moved from New York to Florida.
We were trying to settle in a new home in Wanetta and I was only four years old going on five. I had two brothers. One was two years older and the other was a year younger. I had seen my mother's boyfriend who I called Daddy wetting his hair when he combed it. I didn't know why men wet their hair in the first place to comb it. I didn't think about it or care.
One morning I was going into the bathroom and I saw my two brothers standing in front of the sink wetting their hair and combing it just as a grownup would do. I asked them why they were wetting their hair and they said because we are boys and that's how we comb our hair. I could not understand this action at all. So I went to the sink and wet my hair too and began to comb it. They said you can't do that you're a girl. I argued with that fact. I asked them what why can't I wet my hair and you can? "You just can't.", they said.
I complained and answered by telling them that when I take a shower my hair is wet and then I comb it. They still said it isn't the same thing. You can't wet your hair like us and comb it because we are boys and that is what boys do. I still came back with that doesn't make any sense if my hair is wet after a shower or if I wet it at the sink to get it combed.
They wanted to keep arguing with me about it but I stood my ground and I knew even at my age I had a valid point and I told them their explanation was stupid. Well, I could not actually use those words because I didn't have such a vocabulary yet. I did, however get them to think about what I said. I knew that I made sense and they had to process my logic.
I didn't let them get me down and they never stopped me from wetting my hair at the sink again, but I didn't do it unless I felt it was necessary.
I learned later in life that logic goes a long way when other people try to beat it and can't.
I wet because I proved to them that I could. (A four year old with brilliant thoughts.)
