The Vidal Sassoon Mystery

When I came home this evening, I followed the standard practice of picking up each child, swinging them around a bit, and kissing them on the head. But tonight, I was impressed at both Daniel and Madeleine's tremendously fragrant coiffures. I tried to figure out why their hair should smell so good - so professionally good, in a way that you presume probably cost some money and took some effort.

The fact is that the boys, although they most recently got their hair cut at Amy's salon, actually had their haircuts a week ago, so it didn't make sense that their hair would have such a commercial fragrance again so soon. And Amy picks up all kinds of yuppie-hippy shampoos from her beloved Whole Foods, but I've never smelled anything like that from Amy's collection, not to mention that it smelled more like something that would come out of a mainstream, un-hippy department store. And we all knows that when you walk through the mall, you end up smelling like Nordstrom's cosmetics department for the rest of the day, even if you're just on some mighty "Power Walk" and you never set foot in any shops; but their hair smelled too strong for that explanation.

Finally, I asked Ian why Daniel and Madeleine's hair smelled so good, and he provided a perfectly sensible explanation, with utter confidence and probably a modicum of pride:

"I know what happened: I sprayed some of Mommy's perfume on us."

(September 29, 2011)