Breeding Red-Heads

I love having red hair. But there are times when I wish it wasn’t quite so unusual. No one walks up to other girls and says, “Wow, your hair is brunette” or “Your hair is so blond.” As if I didn’t already know I have red hair. Hair stylists tell me they have clients who would kill for my hair color (which is kinda creepy if you think about it– red hair isn’t that amazing).

The most awkward comments are those about how rare red hair is becoming. The first one I remember happened when I was only seven or eight years old and an elderly couple told my red-haired sister and me that we needed to marry red-headed men so we could preserve the red-head population. I’ve heard these types of comments several times since then, but the most awkward has to be the one we received last week.

My sister and three friends were about to jump out of a plane (don’t worry, they had parachutes). I convinced myself it was okay to be cowardly and tag along just to take pictures (after all, think how many books you could buy for the cost of a skydive!). We were all standing in the hanger, waiting on the instructors, when a guy who might have been in his 60s walked up to the desk. He looked over at my sister and I and commented on our red hair. But he wasn’t content to stop there, and continued by saying how rare red-heads are becoming.  I braced myself for the inevitable comment about red-headed babies, but wasn’t quite ready for him to shout, “You should breed!”

I think my face turned as red as my hair.