File under insecurities

When we were little, the three of us girls would climb onto my parent's king size bed with small hair rubber bands in hand and "do" my dad's hair. Which meant shoving as many man-length-haircut hairs into a rubber band as would go, wiping our sweaty hands on the sheets and grabbing another small fistful to repeat the process. By the end he looked something like a gay porcupine. Then we would yell for mom to come look and it would take her the inevitable twenty minutes any mom takes as she finishes the breakfast dishes, cleans the dog food bowls and writes three bills to be put in the mail. Anything that prolonged our wait seemed to become an urgent matter. When she would finally walk into the bedroom we'd sit on the bed, next to our creation like, snicker, snicker! She hasn't seen this forty times before. Haha, we made your husband look like a doof. And then the Question. The same question every time because it needed to be asked, EVERY time. "Mom, mom, no mom! Listen, listen! (giggle) Would you have married daddy if he looked just like this when you met him? (snort!)" And, bless her, instead of rolling her eyes and giving us all the finger before walking out, she instead would say, "yes, I would have." I started to think about that last night. Wait, no, let me back up. I first imagined falling down the stairs in my wedding dress, legs splayed, comfortable granny panties on display for everyone. And then thought about how embarrassed Bud would be, and THEN started to think about the porcupine hair. And THEN started to think about how, it's not always just a stupid hair-do. Sometimes you have a year when looking back, really, you're not all that proud of yourself. Or a situation where you knew full well what the right decision was but took the lazy way anyway. Or, a misstep in the way you dealt with a delicate friendship or job. The kind where you look back and think, I will never have half the character (the person/people you look up to) has. THEN do you think you still would have married me?