It's 1982, and the Dicksons (Jim, Jeanne, and Aurelie) move (are the new-comers) to a southern town where all the girls long for Farrah Fawcett-type curls (to match their back-woods accents/ and love to talk hair./ and obsess over their hair.) Pre-teen AURELIE begs her parents for a permanent, (known outside the south as a perm) hoping for life-changing curly waves but when they take her to a Beauty School instead of a salon to save money, disaster ensues. A bored Student-Beautician accidentally sets the timer for too long, and the perm ends up destroying Aurelie's already low-grade social life as well as her hair follicles. Aurelie is left as a gawky yet endearing young teenager trying to navigate junior high with what some kids call an afro, then throw things at her, from epithets to dodgeballs.