26 April 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3085: insist on it
“OK, y'all, our grandmothers are letting down their hair and it is just too beautiful!”
It so happened that Mrs. Gladys Jubilee Trent and Mrs. Thalia Ludlow were working on their long hair on the same day, and their combined set of granddaughters – eleven-year-old Velma and eight-year-old Gracie Trent and eleven-year-old Eleanor, ten-year-old Glendella, eight-year-old Edwina, and seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow were all excited and running back and forth until finally Mrs. Jubilee Trent just gathered her two granddaughters and walked over to the Ludlow house. Mrs. Ludlow, seeing this, just came out with her granddaughters, and the two grandmothers sat down next to each other with a laugh, the one with the loose waves of her auburn-and-silver hair falling all down around her, and the other with her immense crown of silver hair radiating all around her.
“But when you really look, they are about the same length – coil power vs. wave power,” Velma observed to Eleanor.
Sgt. Vincent Trent came out of the house with nine-year-old son Milton and nine-year-old nephew Vertran Stepforth at just about the time Ludlow grandsons ten-year-old Andrew, nine-year-old George, six-year-old Grayson, and five-year-old Lil' Robert came out of the house to see what was going on.
“Mama,” the sergeant said, “I'm bringing you your shea butter and your comb.”
“Yeah, I gotta go get Grandma's scented castor oil and comb,” Eleanor said as she went back into the house.
Both grandmothers were very open to their grandchildren playing in and helping them with their hair, and so each set of grandchildren learned about how to care for the different textures represented by the two grandmothers. However, there was a slight issue. Sgt. Trent had his mother's big comb and just parted and sectioned his mother's hair with his strong hands, and the Ludlow granddaughters looked at each other.
“Naw, we ain't going out like this – Papa!” Edwina said, and went back into the house.
Mrs. Jubilee Trent and Mrs. Ludlow started laughing.
Capt. R.E. Ludlow was doing some paperwork when Edwina came and grabbed his hand and pulled him right out onto the porch to see the other eleven children staring with expectation, and Sgt. Trent with a slightly apologetic look on his face, the comb still in his hands. Edwina confidently handed Capt. Ludlow Mrs. Ludlow's big comb, and waited.
Capt. Ludlow smiled gently as his mind went back to his discovery of his second wife's vast head of hair, a pleasant surprise that he had gratefully adapted to and learned. He and the first Mrs. Ludlow had never been that close – he had enjoyed her body and vice versa in terms of quenching physical passion, but to care intimately for a woman was a gift he had not known before the second Mrs. Ludlow. It came in handy, of course, so that Mrs. Ludlow was not always dealing with four big heads of hair. She never had to insist on it: the captain was quietly adept at working with his granddaughters' hair as much as he was his grandsons'. Something Edwina enjoyed doing with him was looking at hairstyling magazines: she thought he got those for her, but …
“There are five women in my house,” he said to his cousin, Col. H.F. Lee about it. “A man has got to be prepared for all eventualities.”
So, he calmly parted and sectioned Mrs. Ludlow's hair, and smiled at the relief on his grandchildren's faces as he did so.
“I'm just making a blueprint while you do that, just like I did for Grandma Jubilee,” Grayson said. “They both have so much hair it's basically a building project.”
“Yeah, you do need a plan to build a style,” Velma said.
“Ain't it the truth, Velma and Grayson, ain't it the truth,” Gracie said.
“Have y'all seen the latest hairstyling magazines?” Edwina said.
“We probably look at different ones,” Velma said, “but maybe we need to bring ours so you can see ours and we can see yours.”
“Mix and match and stuff – yeah!” Milton said.
So all the children went to get all the magazines, leaving the adults to laugh.
“Guess I'm getting a rolled-up French braid while you get the cornrows, Thalia,” Mrs. Jubilee Trent said.
“Actually, we're probably both getting a blend of both, Gladys,” Mrs. Ludlow said.
But reality was less complicated. The grandmothers with the help of their elder grandchildren did what they intended all along, while the younger children got merrily lost in the worlds of possibility in those magazines, hearing the soothing “Next time, sweetheart, next time” periodically as they brought possibility to the border of reality and were gently turned back.