Princess Merida's hair: What is your damage?

Welcome to ‘What Is Your Damage,’ Annie Barrett’s summer shop of all the melodrama and self-absorption she misses from springtime reality TV. Every Tuesday and Friday, she’ll rant about a current offense to her humanity, then assess readers’ damages via video replies. Don’t be shy about admitting what annoys or intrigues you. We’re all in this pop cult together!

What is your damage, Princess Merida’s hair? I am going through some MAJOR HAIR ENVY this week and it’s all 1,500 of your individually animated CGI curls’ fault!

You’ve completely mesmerized me. I see you everywhere now — undulating and breathing fire over my bed, waving your honorary Independent Spirit award in front of my face and whispering with varying degrees of fierceness, “Look at all my different textures.” I want to buy a blanket of you that I could drape over my head while in public and prop up somewhere in my line of vision while resting in private, non-mirrored rooms. Since you came into my life, I’d mist you so bad.

Your biggest damage of all, aside from the wind exposure and split ends? I can never have you! There’s NEVER been a fire starting in my hair. It reaches a fever pitch while the curling iron’s still touching it and then it falls limp. Yet there you are, perfectly embodying The Spirit of Red-io throughout history. Invisible airwaves crackle with life! Bright antenae bristle with the energy. You are perfect and important and you are ruining my life.

You’ve made me reconsider your unfortunate placement in my most important journalistic work: EW.com’s “Disney Princesses: Hairdos and Don’ts” photo gallery. I’d written your entry a few days before I ended up seeing Brave. A few stills of the movie suggested you were in desperate need of a comb and made the princess look crazy. I wanted so badly to tie you up with some sort of cute, rustic rope — nothing fancy, just a single knot is all I’d need and aggggghhh I’ve always wanted to have wild hair that could stay in place like that! — so the princess might avoid a deadly bow-and-hair-row accident.

I ranked you only third out of 11, just after that simpleton in a bow headband, Snow White. How wrong I was! You should have set me on fire by brushing up against me. I’m considering moving you to #1 on the list, but would that be a rash move? Should I wait until my obsession with you passes in a few weeks and then reassess? What is my damage?

But this is supposed to be about your damage. How dare you put the Scottish princess in danger with your fabulosity, Princess Merida’s hair? I can’t believe one of those bears didn’t eat her alive — and you dead (because you’re hair). You are lit-ruh-ly a red flag, shredded and curled like Christmas ribbon for the universal favorite holiday of bears: every day.

You call to mind some things I’d rather not think about:

–snakes

–intestines

–raw ground beef

And some things I love to think about but should not:

–shredded cheese

–Cheetos

–curly straws filled-to-bursting with screwdriver cocktail

–a pile of jelly bracelets all tangled up in orange

–delicious spaghetti

–this mesmerizing glass hanging thing I saw once in Atlantic City

–Easter basket grass that nestles Creme Eggs

–fire, a mechanism for s’mores

Since you’ve been on my mind and in my dreams so constantly, you must know I’m trying to pretend I have healthier eating and drinking habits now that I live in California. Stop being so insensitive to my first world problems!

You’re killing me, Princess Merida’s hair. One of the reasons I’m so upset that the M-ster and I can never be hair twins is because we are already so much alike! I too recently met three gross men and decided on the spot that I didn’t want to marry them. Apparently we might be gay? That’s so weird; I thought it just meant we would choose free will. I need to read into things a bit more, otherwise I might miss something. Like the EXTRA BODY AND VOLUME I will never achieve in the face of your eternal flame!

Also, does your undeniable awesomeness mean that people are going to start pretending they like orange again? Because I was really enjoying being the only one to truly pretend that orange is her favorite color, mostly because she felt sorry for it compared to all the other colors (255 likes). Why are you trying to strip me of my independence? Who made you the queen?

Do you ever stare at the skunk stripe in the queen’s hair and wonder whose is more distracting: the queen’s or Stacy London’s? You guys get TLC out there? Cool show, right?

Wait, I’m not here to make friends. I’m done with you. Stop tormenting me. When I close my eyes tonight, I better go back to seeing a grid of Snoods or the start screen of Bejeweled 2 instead of a floor-to-ceiling wall made out of YOU. What’s your damage?

P.S. Don’t ever leave me.

WHAT IS YOUR DAMAGE THIS WEEK? Tell me!

EW.com Reader Damages for June 26, 2012: I’ve ranked the following atrocities, submitted by readers this week, on a scale of 1 (harmless) to 10 (Heather Chandler) in the ‘WIYD’ video player below.

—The Amazing Spider-Man

–Leanne Rimes and Eddie Cibrian

–coconut water

–Gwyneth Patlrow’s obsession with rap music

–Flo Rida

–Lindsay Lohan

–Alec Baldwin

–hipster phrases derived from crappy ’80s movies

–photo re-sharers on Facebook

–Today’s *FETCH*: Magic Mike

–summer vacation

–Chet Haze, Tom Hanks’ “rapper” offspring

Click on the text prompts in the video player below to see my expert assessments.

What is your damage? What is with you today? What’s with today, today? Let me know what’s annoying you by sending me a “question” in the video box. Start with “From [your name, or a code name if it’s too embarrassing to be seen with me]” so I can address you properly). You can also tweet and/or e-mail me your damages. Do not mail me your damages. I do not believe in paper.

Thanks for playing along, and I’ll see you Friday!

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