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Brush With Futility
I remember the day they banned all hairdryers. Hand driers had been gone for months, replaced once more with less hygienic but more eco-friendly towels. Even though one manufacturer offered "electrical styling system diffusers" the hairdryer detection vans would still confiscate them. Nobody had been using the communal hairdrying wind tunnels that had been set up in various places throughout London, not until the day after hairdryers were finally banned.
At first light, the early birds staggered towards them, their heads like wet mops, firecracker explosions of auburn and blonde with the occasional drowned-rat redhead. They stood as far apart as possible, like men at a bank of urinals, and waggled their heads at the wind tunnel’s output, brushing and combing and taming the wild masses of wet hair.
Later that first morning, around 8:30 there was an influx of women who decided just to get it over with, and damn the embarrassment, or they'd be late for work. They didn't look each other in the eye, not until they were done and they could stride away with confidence that they were once more glamorous. The women (and occasional man with long hair) would walk in one end of the tunnel looking like they had badgers coated in wallpaper paste strapped to their heads and walk out the other end looking like Jennifer Aniston (yes even the men with long hair)
It couldn't last of course. Some women started going to private wind tunnels where they'd share the expense in exchange for a little more privacy, to avoid the shame of morning hair.
It was only a few years later that manufacturers started offering personal wind tunnels that could be set up in gardens, on patios, terraces, balconies, and we were back to square one.
Jul.26.2006