Everybody has some kind of weird obsession if you look hard enough.  Mine is my hair brush.  Well, maybe it is more accurate to say one of mine is my hairbrush.  I’m not obsessed with having perfect hair, just with the brush itself.

Allow me to explain.  I’m a routine kind of person.  Not on a macro level but more micro routines.  It doesn’t matter to me if I don’t go to bed at exactly the same time each night, or eat pork every Tuesday, but smaller chunks of my day have certain routines.  When I get out of the shower I like to dry myself, brush my hair, apply deoderant, then put on some shaving oil.  I get dressed, then return to do the actual shave once the shaving oil has penetrated and moisturised my skin.  If, for some reason, I can’t find my hairbrush this entire routine is thrown into turmoil and my brain goes into mini-meltdown.  I’m not a morning person, so this disruption can cause psychological disturbance that lingers well up to lunch time.

My wife, on the other hand, loves macro-routines (shopping on Monday, playgroup on Thursday), but is hopeless at micro-routine.  She, therefore, simply grabs the nearest available hairbrush at whatever point in the morning she decides to do her or our daughter’s hair.  I think you begin to see the picture.  I’ve asked her repeatedly to respect my hairbrush fixation, but she always thinks “oh, just this once won’t matter”.  The next morning my mini-routine equilibrium is thrown into chaos, all for want of a hairbrush procedure for my spouce.  I even have a drawer of my own in the vanity cupboard.  Incidentally, this was her idea, but at least once a fortnight the hairbrush-napping still occurs.

The other aspect to a hairbrush that is immensely personal are the hairballs.  It disturbs me to see little white bunches of fluff at the base and to realise they are from someone else’s head.  I can also tell when she has snuck a secret use of the hairbrush and put it back, as her hair is much longer.  I fear that when I use a hairbrush that has long strands of hair hanging off they may get knotted and tangled in my head, and I will look like I am trying to grow a comb over or a pony tail.  The hairballs from long hair would take over the brush much quicker than my short hair, meaning a much quicker approach of the separation anxiety of throwing it in the bin and buying a new one.

I think it’s time the vanity drawer had a lock, for all our sakes.