strange hair in my bed

There is one thing I loathe, perhaps more than anything else (well, almost): human hair not attached to a head. Or, more precisely, human hair detached from a body. (Body hair, as long as it's still attached to the person it belongs to, doesn't bother me--although I'm definitely not the want-a-guy-with-a-hairy-chest-and-back kind of girl.)

The other day I was sitting just where I am now, on my futon in my living room and doing some homework. I looked down on the dark blue futon cover and, lo and behold, there was a curly, blond human hair about six inches long. My own hair bothers me when it ends up on the shower walls or floor, but this--this was not my hair. For those of you that don't know me, I'm a redhead, and not one of the hairs on my head is six inches long. And curly? It's been more than a decade since I've had enough hair to curl.

I looked at the hair, not wanting to touch it. Whose was it? How did it get in my apartment? The only person who has been here besides me for the last month has been Dana, so I tell myself it must be hers, pick it up, and dispose of it. I have to tell myself it's Dana's, although her hair is straight and much longer than this one. The alternative is too disgusting. Maybe I sat in a chair at school that had a lose hair on it. Maybe that hair attached itself to my clothing, and I had been walking around all day with a stranger's hair on my clothing. Maybe, like today, my coat brushed against the floor and picked up a few snarled pieces of hair that had been floating with the dust on the dirty floor in my classroom and I didn't notice right away. No. It's better to think it was Dana's, because at least I know her.

I'm fixating on hair because I spent a lot of time in hotels in December, none of which was very nice. In each one of them, I found at least one or two stray hairs that escaped the maids and occupied the room or bathroom when I entered it. I tried to ignore them, tried to avoid them, but I'm still thinking about them. They obviously left an impression.

Oh, well. At least I've never found strange hair in my bed.