Why porches are more open than unlocked front doors.

Two parents look on at their brilliant toddler. Not brilliant in the intellectual sense of the word, but brilliant to them, as most children are. His hair, much fuller and darker than either of his parents', rouses suspicion in the neighbours. His complexion too. The mother is not fair, but not dark either, and her hair is a floppy, weak, light brown. The father, in his youth, had hair the colour of hotel towels and sunlight. Pure white blonde. Now, the father's hair is thinning, a fact he has not yet and maybe will never come to terms with. He opposes his son's first hair cut. His son has beautiful brown black hair with a lustrous sheen, a fineness uncommon among his drooling peers.  The mother takes her son out on the porch anyway, with scissors in one hand, and her newly non-infant in the other arm. How grown up he'll look, she thinks. She cuts without hesitation, as her husband looks on with skepticism.

The sounds that go with this moment are this: There is just one snip, but it is a slow, deliberate snip, as though the scissors are going through the kind of rope that ties boats to docks. Not a hacking though, still a snip. A heavy snip. Then you hear a sort of exhalation, mixed with a "tsk", followed by laughter, the kind that really is uproarious. Real uproarious laughter. While the toddler remains silent, this laughter grows and goes on until it eventually dies down to make room for these words: "Well, maybe I can fix it." And this reply: "I think that might make it worse." And finally, "Can it get any worse? Might as well try."