An Affair To Not Remember

(I am about seven years old, going to the mall with my mom in the early nineties. I see a beauty shop called “The Hair Affair.”)

Me: “Mom, why is it called that?”

Mom: *distractedly* “Called what?”

Me: *whispers* “Hair affair. Isn’t ‘affair’ a bad word?”

Mom: *stares* “How… do you know that?”

Me: *smugly* “I saw it on TV and asked, and [Sister] said that it was when to two married people sleep together but they’re not married to each other.”

Mom: “Uh, well, never you mind. Don’t think about it.”

Me: *mumbling* “Do they have an affair with their hair? Or…?”

(Mom left me to my musings and quickly pulled me somewhere else. It wasn’t long after that that I figured out that affair meant something else, as well!)