Baaaad Bush - A History Lesson In WholeFoods

 The gentleman pictured above we shall call "Mr. R." Mr. R is a cashier at Whole Foods that I met tonight. And the exchange went something like this:

Mr. R:  It that your real hair?

Me:   Yep!

Mr. R: Well that's a baaaad bush you got there!

Me:  Thanks. (Insert the TTLP because I don't know where this is going and he looks like he is gearing up for something.)

Mr. R: See I tell young people nowadays that they don't know what to do with their hair. And that's     really your hair?

Me:  Yes, it is.

Mr. R: You must work in the hair industry or something. You sell hair grease?

Me: Noooope. (The TTLP intensifies and adds to it a side eye.)

Mr. R: Well that's good. So that's your natural texture? You ain't got no texturizer or nothing in there?

Me: No sir. (Watching the monitor closely to ensure he's ringing me up correctly because he is clearly not paying attention.)

Mr. R: See back in the day, like back in the '60s, when a man talked about a woman or a pretty girl, we was talking about her hair. You walked away saying man she had a baaaaaad bush! We mentioned her body but we always mentioned her hair. See we didn't call it no afro. That wasn't what it was originally called. It was called a bush! And see then after the women started wearing them, the men did too. And see that's how the plaiting came about. Cause if you couldn't grow a big fro like what you got, we'd have to braid our hair up so in the morning we could let it out like that.

Me: Really? You don't say. (My mom told me this 3 months ago while giving my fro the side eye.)

Mr. R: Yes indeed! And shoot it was a competition. Cause you know men always want to compete. Now we wasn't competing with the women. We was competing with one another. Yep, sure was.

(I begin to look around because the lines are long and folks are going to start wondering why I'm standing here so long and I'm also trying to keep a steady eye on my receipt.)

Mr. R: And see like our girls oh they might get their hair pressed on Friday or Saturday night and wear it like that to church or out or something. (He's growing animated so I pull out my phone and try to discreetly take his photo without him knowing. Thank goodness the iPhone doesn't flash or make a snap sound like the Blackberry did.)

Mr. R: See the name afro came out cause there used to be the Teeny Weeny Afro. You know, a TWA. We would tease one another and say 'Man you got a TWA.' Cause that was for folks who couldn't grow theirs out. Then we shortened it to just 'fro!

(Thankful he hasn't noticed my oh so privacy invading shots. But I did it to provide my readers with proof!)

Me: Well this is all so interesting. ( I think I believe what I just said.)

Mr. R: Well some women in Philly came out with the name bush cause there was an actual bush in Africa in that shape. (I don't know if I believe that. But I'll see if Wikipedia has a page on it.)

Me: Ffro's were real popular up here huh? (OMG now I'm asking questions to encourage this? I'm tired and want to go home. I have unfinished business there. More on that part later.)

Mr. R: Well I don't know bout up here cause I'm from down south. (The southerner in me compels me to ask anyone who mentions southern roots, what part of the south they're from.)

Me: Where are you from originally?

Mr. R: I'm from Florida. Your total is....(Whew, this is over, but I'm kind of interested in more. What's wrong with me?)

Me: Well it was nice chatting with you. (Looks around to make sure no one is throwing me the evil side eye, pushing my buggy on, and walks out feeling like I had a genuine exchange for the evening. It feels good!!)