Reading an article about an entomologist who would roll her hair up in her car window on long drives, so that it would yank her awake should she fall asleep, I was thinking (not just about the sheer brilliance of that) that it’s time for me to abandon the short hair parade and grow my hair out again.

(Because trivial thoughts like that pass through my head ever so frequently. Because everytime I have short hair I want it long, and when I have it long, I can’t wait to have a dramatically-different look, i.e. short hair. Most girls reading this will know exactly what I’m talking about.)

Anyway, it got me thinking about windows, too. And about how I used to hate it when strong winds caught it up and blew it in my face. Or the time when I was 16, and Jody’s evercool mother rolled down the windows and sunroof and zoomed through an empty stretch, the two of them, short-haired, giggling like schoolgirls and me, in the backseat with no hair-fastening implement, struggling to enjoy the brisk ride, too.

Which led me thinking about the stories my mother’s friend told, from her air stewardess days: how she was on a flight serving India, and hearing plick, plick, plick midflight, she realised some of the passengers were chewing betel nuts and spitting the remains out of what they thought were open windows.

Or the time she gave some passengers sweets to alieviate the discomfort caused by their ears popping due to the change in pressure levels. Which they promptly stuck in their ears, obediently.

Did I miss the point of the article, or what?