Widow's Peak Anonymous

According to English folklore, a woman with a widow's peak will outlive her husband. Well tell that to a self-conscious fifth-grader and tell me how she responds.

In 5th grade, a girl in my class sidled up to me, grinning, and informed me, "You have a widow's peak, you know." No doubt there had been a couple times when I had lamented over the heart-shaped appearance of my head, but never had I explicitly said the word "widow's peak" out loud or mentioned this to anyone. I was mortified.

I went home that evening, eager to confess my embarrassment to my mom.

"Mom, I have a widow's peak," I said, then proceeded in explaining by rubbing the offending hair protruding below the rest of my hairline.

"What?" she asked.

"I have a widow's peak"

"Oh, that is called a widow's peak? If you had that a long time ago in Korea, it meant you were beautiful," she said.

I was unconvinced. In fact, I became so self-conscious that every time I went out, the first thing I noticed when I saw people was whether or not they had a widow's peak. Not content with imagining myself with a smooth hairline, I grabbed my mom's razor, crept into the bathroom and stood in...