Last week when my daughter & I went for our tattoo consult, on a whim I decided to get another piercing. The young guy who did it, Mike, was a testimony to his craft. His own ears were double pierced with holes so large you could stick your middle finger through them. I counted at least 10 tattoos on his exposed body, and can only imagine what lay beneath his very punk clothing. His artfully straightened hair poked randomly through his backwards baseball cap. Mike's overall appearance made a statement. He was not a conformist.

As he pulled my hair back from my ears, he commented just a little disapprovingly, 'Wow, you have biiiiig hair. Why don't you straighten it?'

'Well,' I responded, once the unexpected jolt of criticism diminished, 'I guess I just don't want to spend my life straightening my hair to fit in.'

***

Isn't it interesting that even the subculture has a set of standards to conform to?