Sarah stared at her curling iron, its cord wrapped tightly around itself like a nervous snake. “You know,” she said to her reflection, “I think this thing is having an existential crisis.”
Her roommate Rachel looked up from her phone, eyebrow raised. “It’s an appliance, Sarah.”
“No, really. Look at how it’s coiled up, refusing to straighten. It’s like it’s questioning its purpose - why must it always make things curly? What if it wants to explore other possibilities?”
Rachel sighed. “You’ve been reading too much Kundera again, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.” Sarah picked up the curling iron, studying its tense metal barrel. “But don’t you ever wonder if objects absorb our anxieties? This iron has witnessed countless moments of self-doubt in this bathroom. Years of women staring into this mirror, trying to reshape themselves into someone else’s ideal.”
“It’s too early for philosophy,” Rachel groaned. “Just plug it in and do your hair.”
Sarah connected the plug, watching the red light blink to life. “What if it’s tired? What if every morning it thinks ‘here we go again, another day of forcing someone else’s vision of beauty onto unwilling hair?’”
“You’re projecting.”
“Aren’t we all always projecting? Forcing meaning onto meaningless things because we can’t bear the void?” Sarah wrapped a strand of hair around the barrel, watching steam rise. “Maybe that’s why I’m so fascinated by this anxious little tool - because it reflects back our own desperate need to shape the world into something we can understand.”
“Your hair’s smoking,” Rachel pointed out.
Sarah quickly released the curl, watching it spring into a tight coil before gradually relaxing. “See? Even the curl itself rebels against forced perfection. It knows its true nature is somewhere between straight and curly, order and chaos.”
“I’m going to work,” Rachel announced, gathering her things. “Try not to have an existential breakdown with the hairdryer while I’m gone.”
Left alone, Sarah continued her morning routine, but her movements were slower now, more deliberate. With each curl, she found herself wondering about the nature of beauty, of authenticity, of the endless human drive to control and reshape our environment.
When she finished, she held the cooling iron in her hands one last time before storing it away. “Maybe your anxiety isn’t about curling at all,” she whispered to it. “Maybe, like all of us, you’re just trying to figure out who you are when you’re not performing your assigned role.”
The curling iron said nothing, of course. But as Sarah closed the bathroom cabinet, she could have sworn its cord had loosened slightly, as if finally allowing itself to simply be.
She left for work with her perfectly styled hair, knowing it would gradually unravel throughout the day. And for the first time, she was okay with that - finding beauty in the inevitable return to authenticity, in the gentle rebellion against artificial perfection.
After all, isn’t that what we’re all doing, in our own ways? Slowly uncurling from the shapes others have twisted us into, finding our way back to ourselves?