Notes: Mari and Sammy - thanks for the squeal-inducing feedback! Special thanks to Mari for bouncing until I had a nearly complete story :-)

Readers and REAL McRollers - Thank you for your amazing support! It is always appreciated.

This was supposed to be a scene in the Flying Solo story from a few months ago, but I didn't get to it at the time. I'm glad I didn't because now it has its own story :-)

Hope you enjoy!

Tangled (A McRoll in the REAL World Story)

"What're you doin', Mommy?" Angie asked after running into her parents' bedroom and finding Catherine in the bathroom drying her hair in front of the mirror.

Catherine smiled over at her and spoke over the low noise of the dryer. "I'm getting ready for my dinner with Samantha."

Angie came over to the sink and used the closed drawers to climb onto the counter as Catherine watched and shook her head in amusement.

"I coming to dinner wif Saman'fa too?"

"No, you're having dinner with Daddy and DJ here," Catherine said, returning to her hair.

Angie pouted for a moment, but quickly moved on to a more important question. "What we eating for dinner?"

Catherine chuckled. "Hamburgers."

"Wif french fries?" Angie asked hopefully.

"No french fries. Zucchini."

Angie swung her legs excitedly. "Yum! Zucchini!"

Catherine grinned, turning off the dryer.. "You are one of a kind, baby girl." She set down her brush and unplugged the dryer to put up in the cabinet.

"Dis isn't you' brush, Mommy," Angie said, picking it up and examining it. "You' brush is purple."

Catherine smiled. "It is my brush, it's just not the one I use every day," she explained patiently. "That's a rounded brush to give my hair a little more curl."

"I try it, too," Angie said, moving to brush her own hair.

"Careful, baby girl," Catherine said, gently stopping her. "You already have beautiful curls, and round brushes and curls don't mix."

"Please?" Angie looked up at her plaintively.

Catherine sighed, relenting with a smile. "Just a little. I'll help you." She carefully helped Angie brush the bottom of the hair over her shoulder and Angie beamed.

"It's bee-ootiful," she said, and Catherine's smile widened.

"Yes, you are," Catherine said, kissing her head. "Legs up."

Angie dutifully lifted her legs out straight so Catherine could put the brush away in the drawer.

"Arms up," Catherine instructed with a grin, taking Angie's hands when the almost four-year-old raised them and gently lifting her off the counter and down to the floor. She went back into the bedroom and slipped into a pair of flats. Turning back to Angie she did a little spin so her skirt twirled, much to the little girl's delight.

Catherine held out her arms. "Well, am I ready for dinner?"

Angie tilted her head, looking at her mother, then beamed and thrust her own arms into the air. "Bee-ootiful!"

"Aww, thank you, baby girl." She leaned down and cupped her cheeks, kissing her forehead. "Almost as beautiful as you."

Twenty minutes later, DJ was sitting at the dining room table drawing baseball cards of his teammates when Steve came inside with a plate of hot-from-the-grill burgers.

"Where's your sister?" Steve asked. When he'd gone outside, Angie had been at the table with DJ.

"She went upstairs," DJ told him.

"To do what?"

DJ shrugged. "She said she was going to get ready for dinner."

Steve's brow knitted in confusion. "Ready for dinner?"

"Like Mommy got ready for her dinner."

Steve paused, the wheels in his head turning through possible scenarios, then he set the plate of burgers down on the table and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. After a quick check of Angie's bedroom and the bathroom in the hall, he heard noises coming from the master bathroom. Assuming Angie had decided to try out Catherine's makeup again, he relaxed a little when he arrived in the doorway to see Angie on the sink counter but nothing awry.

"Hey, baby girl, what are you doing up here? The burgers are done. It's time to eat."

Angie looked over at him, frowning. "It's not working, Daddy."

"What's not working?"

She turned away from him and gestured to the back of her head where Catherine's rounded hairbrush hung, tangled in her curly, brown hair

DJ shuffled his feet, biting his lip as he stood by his parents' bed watching Steve try to work the tangled hairbrush out of Angie's hair.

"Should we call Mommy?" he finally asked. "This kinda seems like a Mommy problem."

Steve looked over Angie's head at him. "What? No. We don't need to call Mommy. Let her enjoy her dinner. We got this." He turned his attention back to the snarled brush, attempting to gently work the hair out of its bristles.

DJ nodded, looking at Angie who winced a little at a small tug from Steve. After a moment, he spoke again. "Should we call Grandma?"

Steve paused, glancing at him, then back at the brush. "I tried, she didn't pick up."

"Ow, Daddy," Angie said at another small tug.

"I'm sorry, baby girl," Steve said immediately, kissing her head. He sighed. Somehow the brush seemed even more ensnared than when he'd started. Shaking his head, he said, "Boy, when you get something stuck, Angie, you really get something stuck."

"Cut it out, Daddy," Angie said. "Den we can eat hamburgers an' zucchini."

"I can go get the scissors, Daddy," DJ offered.

"We're not going to cut it," Steve said. "It's really close to your head, baby girl, and it's got a lot of your hair in it."

"I'm hungry, Daddy," she said, brow furrowed.

Steve looked at her and then at DJ who nodded a bit reluctantly in agreement. Taking a deep breath, he nodded and let go of the brush. "How does that feel, Angie? Does it hurt just hanging there?"

"No," she said.

Steve took out his phone. "Okay, how about we eat we real quick, and I'll call in reinforcements."

"Here's Uncle Danny, Daddy," DJ said, leading his uncle onto the back deck after they'd finished their dinner in record time. "He said the password."

"Good job, buddy," Steve said.

"What in the world are you doing to my goddaughter's beautiful hair?" Danny asked incredulously as soon as he spotted Steve and Angie on the chaise.

"I thought peanut butter helps get stuck things out of hair," he said, working peanut butter from his fingers onto the bristles of the hairbrush. "Cath's cousin Philip got gum in her hair once when she was a kid and their Aunt Louise got it out with peanut butter."

"Peanut butter is yummy, Uncle Danno," Angie told him around the spoon of it in her mouth.

"You are right about that," Danny agreed and without missing a beat, turned his eyes back to his best friend. "And while it may help get gum out of hair, for a hairbrush you need oil." He held up the bottle of olive oil he'd brought with him.

"How do you know, Uncle Danny?" DJ asked, genuinely curious.

"I have a daughter," Danny replied evasively.

Steve narrowed his eyebrows, wiping the peanut butter off of his fingers. "Gracie never got anything stuck in her hair."

Danny sighed. "I also have two sisters." He tried to leave it at that but could tell Steve sensed there was more to the story. "Just, trust me."

"I bet Angela will tell me," Steve said.

"Angela was the instigator …"

Steve grinned. "Knew it."

"And has been sworn to secrecy."

Steve snorted. "Yeah right. Pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out on that one."

"What's a 'statue of limitations'?" DJ asked.

"It's your Daddy throwing around legal terms to try and be funny," Danny said. "Now, are you ready for Uncle Danno's special olive oil to save the day?"

"Can I keep eating da peanut butter?" Angie asked hopefully, reaching back to try and touch the peanut butter in her hair.

"One more spoonful," Steve said, catching her hand. "From the jar, not your hair."

Danny grinned as Angie promptly dug her spoon into the peanut butter jar before Steve put the lid back on it. "Priorities."

"Just help me get this thing out."

Two hours later, Catherine came home to find Steve on the sofa with DJ asleep against his side and Angie out cold with her head in his lap. Finding Nemo was playing on the TV, though the sound was muted.

"Hey, fun night?" she asked quietly, setting her purse and keys down on the end table before closing the door.

Steve looked over at her wearily. "I wouldn't say 'fun' exactly …"

Confused, Catherine noticed her round hairbrush on the coffee table and picked it up.

"Wh–" she began.

"Do me a favor," he said. "Either put that thing in the lock box or get rid of it."

"What?"

"There was … a situation."

Catherine frowned, examining the brush. "Is this … peanut butter?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

She pressed her lips tightly together to prevent a laugh, surmising what must have happened.

Steve nodded to Angie, hair still a little wet from the bath after they'd finally gotten the hairbrush out of her hair. "Can you get her?"

Catherine put down the brush and came over to gently lift Angie into her arms. Steve shifted on the sofa and picked up DJ without waking him.

As she headed for the stairs, Catherine caught a whiff of something and leaned down, sniffing Angie's hair. Again she fought a smile, glancing back at Steve.

"Well, at least you got to the right pantry item eventually. Do we need to go shopping for more olive oil?"

"It was Danny's," he admitted as they started up the stairs. "I suppose we owe him a bottle."

She nodded slowly, her smile starting to break through. "Well, I'm glad Daddy and Uncle Danno took care of the … situation. But you know, you were watching the wrong movie."

"It was Angie's choice. Why? What should we have watched instead?"

Catherine paused on the stairs to look back at him. "Isn't it obvious, Commander?"

When he shook his head, she grinned.

"Tangled, of course."

Hope you enjoyed!

Note: Dedicated to my dad, who once painstakingly got a rounded brush out of his daughter's decidedly not-curly hair when I was older than I care to admit, to my great-aunt Dorothy who got gum out of my hair with peanut butter, and to Mari who endured the olive oil treatment herself :-)

And if you want to read a truly hysterical "object-stuck-in-hair" book, check out On Account of the Gum by Adam Rex.

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