Archive for July, 2008

Maybe it’s because I’m about to turn 40 soon (see my count-downer on the bottom of this page – argh!), but I’ve been feeling decidedly nostalgic lately. I’ve already talked about the old gadgets I remember from days gone by, but in this post I’m about to reveal a terribly embarrassing secret from my younger days.

If you’re not Australian, you may not have heard of the term ‘daggy’. A dag is actually the fly-ridden yucky bits which hang off the end of a sheep’s bum, but eventually, in Australian vernacular, it came to mean ‘nerdy, but in a kind of goofy lovable way’. So if you’re a dag, it’s a bad thing in a good kind of way…or is that a good thing in a bad kind of way? I dunno – now I’m confused!

Anyway, I have to confess that I was the epitome of dagginess in my youth. (Note the operative word ‘was’ hehe). I was a dag for a number of reasons.

I had a preoccupation with being what I was not. In other words, I wanted to be a tall willowy straight haired blonde. Instead I was short and plump and my head was topped by an unruly mop of curly very dark hair. These were the days of the Brady Bunch type stick-straight hair and straightening irons weren’t invented, and I was cursed with the kinky frizz from hell. Alas, with my own hair, I’d never be fashionable, so, (and I’m cringing to admit the next bit), I took steps to do something about it.

The first was to ask my mum for a wig for my birthday. I had visions of tossing my straight blonde wig hair about in the breeze like one of those models in the shampoo commercials. When my birthday came and I excitedly opened up my present I found…a wig…short, curly, very dark brown – exactly like my own real hair. I may as well have made my own head into the wig. Of course, I was a polite child, and thanked my mum, and then the wig was used to dress up our poor long suffering dog. She looked pretty darned funny, and if it weren’t for the extra hairy bits and the four legs, we could have been twins when she was wearing the wig.

The second thing I did was even more embarrassing. Obviously, the asking for a wig thing didn’t work, so I resorted to plan B. I took a pair of my mum’s nylon stockings (that’s ‘tights’ to you British!) and cut each leg into three strips. Then I plaited the legs so I had two lovely long braids which I tied off with pretty ribbon. Then I plonked the stockings on my head, and that was my ‘long straight’ hair. Yup, you heard me right – I wore stockings on my head as a wig. Now you will understand the full meaning of the term ‘daggy’.

Oh, btw, I was under the age of 8 when this happened – I swear! I have since bought the world’s most important and life changing gadget – an electric hair straightener, and my world has been different ever since.