This has been a really hard day. I’ve been unhunging, folding and storing away my summer frocks. Sun shines, but I know what needs to be done. In their place I’ve pulled out wools, and tweeds and long sleeves (sleeves you are my enemy), sweaters and scarves and while the colours are bold and I do have genuine affection for some pieces, it’s a sad time. Have tears been shed? I don’t want to talk about it.

But that is not the hard part. No. Today, after many years of loyal companionship and service, my beloved hot rollers heat to excruciating temperatures no more. No longer will I scald my hands with these retro rollers before unleashing a bevy of curls onto my shoulders. Curling irons have always been a joke, pin curls a lesson in extreme patience and rag curls a lesson in Cocker spaniel. The only tools that has allowed me to achieve best results, have been these old friends.

I was not their original owner. A neighbour’s mother’s mother bought them many years ago. They were traded for some other household item by my mother in the mid-80s and I have been using them ever since. For over forty years they’ve been serving ladies such as myself, through good style and bad.

From my early elementary years, insisting that my mother set my hair until I looked like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, to my Wonder Woman costume styling, to my high school graduation photo, to all those times it was just too greasy to be left to it’s own devices, my hair has been made greater by these spiked lovelies and their little metal pins. You’ve earned a rest, girls. Today, I pour some malt liquor out for you, my fallen homeys.

Goodbye, Clairol 20 Instant Hairsetter. I’ll never forget you.