“A woman over the age of 40,” Mom declared á la Coco Chanel, “should always wear short hair.”

Although I’m years beyond Mom’s hairy deadline, I finally decided it was time to hit the mark and connect with my inner Coco. Trying to look like Rapunzel when my hormones come in a bottle is absurd.

Though I knew my husband would be mortified, I proceeded with historic precedence in hand. You see, back in the 1920s, I told him, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel claimed “bobbed hair is a state of mind and not merely a new manner of dressing my head. . . . I consider getting rid of our long hair one of the many little shackles that women have cast aside in their passage to freedom.”

If it’s good enough for Coco, then it’s good enough for Kirby.

Turns out a gas heater in Chanel’s apartment exploded, burning off most of her long hair. To roll with the punches, La Coco supposedly trimmed off the burnt ends into a sassy short hairdo, then continued on with her evening, starting a fashion that swept much of the Western world.

Though this story is probably fictional, it captures the spirit of the short-haired flappers of the ’20s, creative and bold young women determined to get on with their lives.

And who knows how much life I have to get on with, but all these wily strands flying around my head are driving me to drink. And I don’t think removing them over the barbecue would be a good idea.

So I schlepped my abundant locks to Billy Yamaguchi’s hair design studio in Westlake Village in search of a “look,” making passage to my future—a trip to Albertsons and the dry cleaners—more spirited. More elegant. More . . . me.

Noting that his hairs were longer than mine was a tad disconcerting. No problem.

“Billy,” I complained, “my hair has become rebellious, feisty, and I look like Roseanne Rosannadanna instead of Christie Brinkley. Billy,” I lamented, “do something fast before I pull out the pinking shears and look like Homer Simpson.”

Do you recall our last episode with Santa Ana winds? Standing on a hilltop in Simi Valley, the winds attacked my flowing frizz, driving 50 strands into my lip gloss and catapulting the rest into disorderly oblivion. I looked like “Old Broad Barbie” living in a wind tunnel.

Hopped into the car. Checked out the mirror. Depression set in.

“Who is that old gal with the beef jerky skin who looks as if she has been shot with 1,000 volts?”

The lights of Simi Valley and Moorpark glowed in the valley below as I carefully extracted my hair from my lip gloss and thought about Mom’s admonition to “get rid of that dreadful stringy stuff— you look like you need a violin.”

Well, you know the rest.

I did it. My hair now dries in 30 seconds. My husband still loves me. And my passage to freedom is complete.

See you at Albertsons. You can reach Elizabeth Kirby at kirby@theacorn.com