So you'd never guess by looking at me, because I wear it so well, but I didn't mean to get a mohawk. For reals.

I was kickin' it in the vinyl chair, putrid puce smock draped around me, listening to the hairdresser gab on and on about her mother-in-law's bunion--I mean, really, do I have a forehead tattoo that says tell me all the details?--when it happened.

CRASH!

The shattering of glass, not ten feet from where I sat, nearly made me plop a brick right then and there. What's worse? My lurch away from the window didn't coordinate with the hairdresser's jerky motion toward it... and her fancy sheers took a near-scalping with them.

So as the kid who'd thrown a rock at the salon's front entry was 'cuffed and scolded by the cops and his mom, respectively (duh!), we determined the best (okay, only) remedy was a 'hawk.

"It'll totally work with your burgundy highlights," she mused.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I was thinkin' about gettin' my lip pierced, anyway. It'd complete the look, right?"

And so here I am, lovin' my mohawk. Totally not the intended effect, but still a surprisingly satisfying outcome.

About the Author:  Janna Qualman

Janna Qualman is a freelance and fiction writer who lives with her husband and daughters in the Midwest. Her first novel is under consideration by a New York publishing house. She has never had a mohawk.