Dysfunction

Today I planned on having my normal visit to the hairdresser. It didn't quite work out that way.
Things took a turn for the worse when the girl who works next to my beautician got the news that she'd be having a six year old client who needed a press and curl. The little girl who's cute as a button and her grandmother get situated. Granny mentions that her granddaughter is going to be a flower girl in a wedding on Saturday. As she walks past me, I notice that the child looks almost panicked, not the way you'd expect a happy child with no worries to look. Their beautician gets started and I'm whisked away to the shampoo bowl.
Over the sound of the water, I hear wailing on the other side of the wall. My beautician says the the girl is having a fit. We get back from the and the child is in tears. These weren't the 'I don't want to get my hair washed' but the 'you're trying to kill me' variety. Since this is also a cosmetology school, an instructor is called over and she takes charge of the situation.
When they bring her back from shampooing, that's when the real show starts. The girl starts bucking out of the seat as her hair is being blow dried and combed. Grandma or as I later find out Great Grandma explains that she just had braids taken out, which had been in the child's head for several months. With the situation being too much for just one beautician, three hover over this child's head with combs and a blow dryer, trying to make sense of her chaotic mane of curls. You see, the braids were in her head so long, they started to turn into dreadlocks. Clumps of matted hair are combed out of her hair all the while she's screaming bloody murder.
Oh great granny attempts to help in her own demented way. She repeatedly reminds the child that she's not going to be in the wedding, which causes the kid to scream even louder. She shrugs off responsibility for the tangled mess, blaming it on the child's mother and swearing it will never happen again.
For an hour, I'm listening as a poor child is being tormented. A few hair stylists wander into the area and watch the circus before walking away and shaking their heads. Granny isn't concerned with her great grand who's been so obviously neglected, her primary concern is the wedding tomorrow and what they're going to do without a flower girl. The old woman even suggests bringing the girl in the morning and having her hair relaxed, which the instructor politely tells her is not possible since it was just washed.
After all remedies are exhausted, the instructor leaves and returns with a partial refund. There's no way they can do anything with this child's head because she can't keep still. Grandma calls 'grandpa' who starts yelling at her over the phone demanding an explanation as to why the girl's hair can't be done. Obviously brow beaten for years, she meekly explains the situation, and leaves to wait for him in the lobby.
I feel bad for the girl. It's bad enough that her mother is neglectful, but she's surrounded by elders who have their priorities in the wrong place. I have a feeling that there are probably chapters and chapters of dysfunction in this child's life. Sure she'll probably walk down the aisle tomorrow in her pretty dress, but what about the next day? What about the day after that? At what point will someone say enough is enough and pull her out of that dysfunction?