REALITY?: Catholic Penance or Just Simply a Haircut?

Okay, you get one shot of me here because I’m rather proud of having given myself a fairly decent haircut, almost like my mother used to do but without the high layered back beyond a feeble inch or so. I’ve always cut my own hair (or got my mother to do it) but to get the back layered was near impossible for the old “Sassoon” style that’s always been my favorite.  One time I cut the top and sides real short and chickened out and ended up with the back real long. I’ve never tried the Sassoon again until now. And ‘now’ not only coincides with my shorter ‘do’ for winter (in summer it needs to be long enough to put up) but with the loss of my mother’s wedding ring which I’ve worn for four years now.

Huh?

Well yes, there’s that Catholic guilt that you never really lose and if you’ve been through the parochial school system as well, the hairshirts and the flagellation and the cutting off of one’s crowning glory of hair don’t die easy. I even considered taking the inches cut off and tossing them out to the winds in the hope they’d help me find the ring somewhere in the lawn but thought that was going a bit too far. I crawled around on my hands and knees instead.  Wait a minute, didn’t Saint What’s His Name do that as penance for something? Like not eating his peas or not taking off his hat in church?