A Boy Deer

27 Months: “Maw-Maw is a boy dear. She has such beautiful antlers.”

My grandmother has always impressed me with the elaborate ornaments she rolls into her hair once a week. For as long as I can remember, she has spent hours neatly folding a variety of curlers, barrettes, and pins into her silver hair. Then, after sleeping in them (with a pair of panties on her head to keep them from getting messed up) she would wake up, remove the trimmings, and display a sculpture of hair so perfect that it looked like it belonged in an art museum.

I wasn’t, of course, the only one who noticed this. My two-year-old was always impressed with the impressive “antlers” she saw on my grandmother’s head. And she saw them regularly enough that the antlers warranted commentary. Shortly after learning from a book that the presence of antlers can differentiate male and female deer, she arrived at a pretty logical conclusion. Her great-grandmother, with all the hair rollers and barrettes and pins, must be a boy deer.