when i was little, my mom cut my bangs for me.

this usually took place the day before some important and stressful event. my hair, at this point, was blonde and silky and perfectly straight.

my mom would sit me down in the kitchen with a towel around my shoulders and a little spray bottle of water. she'd snip a careful, decisive line across my forehead, exposing my hitherto hidden eyebrows. then she'd take a step back, cluck her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and begin the process of trimming.

because, of course, one side was longer than the other.

so the left side rose a few centimeters; inevitably, it was a centimeter or two too many, and she'd switch over to the right side.
repeat.

gradually, the line of my bangs crept higher and higher. at some point, she'd (for some reason yet unknown to me) concentrate on the middle part, with the end result being that i was trundled off to school with a very small (and still unveven) sort of rainbow-shaped arc of hair across my forehead.

"just a little off the left... oops, okay, a little off the right side... hmm... maybe a little more..."

d'ya think that kind of thing is genetic?