red head

My mother has red hair. Supposedly I look very much like my father. My grandmother has always taken a lot of joy in the idea that I would grow up to repeat my dad's footsteps. My parents met in college, and my grandmother has chided, for as long as I can remember, 'Andy's going to go off to college and meet a nice red head.' I have resisted this with every fiber of my being. I'm now incapable of being attracted to a red haired girl, no matter how solidly built she might be otherwise.

For my first year of college I attended the same community college where my parents met. To compound the situation, I lived with my grandparents during that time because they lived much closer to the school. Before my first day of school, my grandmother taunted me again.

I found my seat in my first class. Shortly after I sat down a freckle-faced girl with very frizzy red hair sat in the seat right in front of me. I panicked. I imagined my grandmother standing outside the door wringing her conniving hands. I couldn't concentrate on anything the teacher told us. The only thing running through my head was, 'there is no way I'm going to marry this girl.' And I almost told her so as she turned to pass me the syllabus.

When I got home I expected my grandmother to check on my red-head-meeting status. And of course she did. I told her, no I hadn't met any.