The Wiglet

In the late 1960’s it was popular to wear hair pieces, 'wiglets', to give your hair oomph and style. These were quarter to half size wigs that you pre-styled and pinned onto the top of your head.  I wore a wiglet.

My first job was at the Luby’s Cafeteria in a shopping strip in Hurst, Texas. I started out as the tea cart pusher, moved on to a food server, and then as the pie cutter and bread baker.  The pie cutter and bread baker was a one girl job that included keeping the cakes, pies, and bread supplied to the serving line. The bread items were freshly baked and served hot.  Friday nights, or after church on Sunday, were so busy that it was a struggle to keep up. All of these jobs were hot and being able to pin my hair up, and slap a wiglet into place, was a blessing.

I did not mix the dough for the rolls or the batter for the cornbread, but I did have to set the rolls out to rise before baking. The Mexican cornbread was very popular and the batter was stored in a 30 gallon container. The container sat on a low table beside the oven, for quick dipping, to fill the proper baking pans. The rolls were set upon huge sheet pans and placed on top of the tall oven to rise. In order to see if the rolls were ready to bake I had to jump up and down to see the top of the oven. I was making $1.15 an hour and earned every penny of it.   

One hot, August, Sunday afternoon, after jumping up and down about two hundred times, my wiglet came loose and fell into the cornbread batter container. It sank faster than the Titanic. I was mortified! There was no way I could, or would, bake the cornbread batter containing my drowned wiglet!

The cafeteria kitchen had terra cotta floor tile and the floors sloped toward large drains so that the kitchen could be easily hosed down for cleaning. My corner of the kitchen had such a drain. I lifted the drain cover and proceeded to pour about twenty-five gallons of Mexican corn bread batter, and a wiglet, down the drain.  I really was surprised when the batter rose and stopped up the sewer lines of the strip mall and a portion of the city of Hurst. I did not even have to confess to what I had done; we were the only place in town that baked Mexican cornbread by a wiglet-less blonde.

The cafeteria manager told me he would deduct a little each week from my pay to cover the cost of the plumber. I only cleared about $37 a week and his deduction plan struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard. I think that was the first time I ever laughed so hard that I farted and blew a snot bubble out of my nose at the same time.

I escaped from having to pay for the plumber. Another cafeteria chain bought out the Luby’s chain, shortly after the cornbread fiasco, and they brought in their own management team. The outgoing Luby’s manager did not squeal on me.

I never did find a replacement wiglet as good as the one that drowned. I still miss it, and think fondly of it, whenever I butter a slice of Mexican cornbread.