I remember trips to the "beauty parlor" with my Mom and my Grandma.

Yes, I remember "The Machine", and "The Beauty Parlor". My Mom, for a time use to take me, "a boy" to the "beauty parlor", where she and my Grandma went to get their hair "done", to get my hair "taken care of". This was before the time of unisex "hair salons". My Mom and my Gran would have things done to their hair, the last part was sitting under "The Machine", which they would emerge from under Transformed. I was never transformed my self however, never received a "make over", although I did dream of it.

The owner had taken to doing children's hair of either gender as side thing for more business. He also sold a variety items for women beyond the usual "beauty products", clothing, handbags accessorizes. I have had my hair washed and cut and have sat under the machine, yet I was never transformed. Going there would always bring at out and odd mixture of feelings in me, just a tiny bit of "boys don't belong here" but also some odd longings. I would watch everything being done, nails hair etc., and causally rummage a bit through the things for sale, supposedly out of boredom, affecting "a kids simple nosiness". All the while with strange images flashing through my brain, images of me with colored nails, pretty hair, and different cloths.

Not picking up my odd mix of feelings, my Mom and me Grandma, would of course talk to me and try to disarm "my fears" of "a boy in a beauty parlor". They would tell me, "I was just keeping them company", and when I had my hair done that, "It's just the same as going to a barber. A hair cut is a hair cut." And yes there was a bit of "boys don't belong here" in my thoughts because you can't help knowing that others may think you odd, but it wasn't a fear of "being girlish", it was a bit of something quite the opposite. I would watch, and finger the pretty things, and quietly dream, while pretending to be just bored little boy waiting for his Mom and his Gran. *sigh*

And so, I remember those trips with nostalgia, a longing from the not fulfilled, and long past passing thoughts of "if only" or "what if", still echoing through time to the present, "What if I had been offered the chance?"

And still I dream,
~Hypatia >i<

PS. So who thinks I should use this a a jump off(starting point) for a real story a fiction one that is?