Murderer’s Row

Photo Credit: Timothy Paul Smith - Wikipedia Commons

“You look like an ax murderer.”  That was definitely not the look I was going for when I dressed for church this morning.

I have just walked into the sanctuary.  I’m suddenly feeling as if I might need an actual sanctuary.

“It’s windy outside,” I tell Dave, Lucinda’s husband.  I knew the wind had mussed my hair, but it apparently transformed my entire demeanor into a deranged killer.

So, what on earth would I be if I came in with rumpled clothes—a genocidal maniac?

“I just married him.  I didn’t raise him,” Lucinda says.

Don Rickles apparently raised him.

What does an ax murderer even look like?  I never pictured one looking like a sixty-something woman dressed in her Sunday best, even if her hair does look like Phyllis Diller’s fright wig.

“I don’t mean you are an actual ax murderer.  You just look like one.”

I feel so much better now.

I have no idea what to say.  Actually, I have an idea of what to say but I really don’t think I should say it in church.  My head buzzes with bad words. 

It’s not like Dave has any standing as far as hair goes.  He looks like a graying hippie Friar Tuck who hasn’t seen the good side of a comb for two decades.

I decide to try and divert the conversation.  “I’m loving your new haircut,” I tell Lucinda, who beams.  “It’s really working for you.”

I comb my head with my fingers as I stride to my usual seat.  I resist the temptation to dash into the bathroom and inspect my coif in the mirror.

Lucky for Dave, I only resemble an ax murderer.