What Hair?

From The Extended Group

The phrase "What Hair?" refers one of the more memorable incidents John Chang initiated in Elementary School.

Origin

During the math section of class, Mrs. Nielson allowed her lecture on fractions to characteristically wander into a series personal anecdotes that the class would daily endure. As she was speaking, she ended one of her sentences with a now forgotten reference to "my hair." John, who had not been paying attention up until that point, decided to seize the opportunity and declared to his tablemates, "yeah, what hair? Heh. Heh. Heh."

Two things are notable about John at this point. First, he was facing away from Mrs. Nielson, so he assumed only those in the immediate proximity could hear. Second, however, John was listening to music on headphones at the time, so he tragically did not adjust the modulation of his voice. His sardonic remark was thus heard clearly by everyone in the class, including the taken-aback educator.

Unaware of his blunder, John grinned satisfactorily and turned to his friends, who returned stares of utter horror, as did those of everyone else in the class. Realizing something was wrong, John discarded his headphones and looked around, only to see Mrs. Nielson towering menacingly over his seat. This was one of the tensest moments of the class, as Mrs. Nielson had a stalwart reputation as a merciless despot who rewarded dissent with extreme prejudice (a rumor started by Ed Kreidler maintained that she kept a shotgun under her desk).

Rather than killing John (as some of us anticipated), Mrs. Nielson instead spent roughly the next 30 minutes making questionable jokes about his Asian heritage. She first threatened to "call the parents" after which she said she was going to "karate chop" him and "use Kung Fu" to teach him a lesson, all the while punching and doing half-hearted roundhouse kicks in the air. These antics met with stiff, terrified laughter from the observing students.

It is perhaps notable that Mrs. Nielson does in fact have very shortly-kempt hair, which is thinner than most by virtue of her age.