Tiger Stripes

Never let someone else decide the color of your hair.  If you’re going to make a mistake, make sure it’s your fault.  “It’s only hair,” I tell my kids when they want to rebel.  “Go ahead and experiment: it grows back.”  The vegan dyed his hair bright pink for the first day of school last year.   It was his idea and it was his idea to shave it off as soon as he came home.  Be in charge of your own head. 

The first week Charlie’s stepdaughter Jenn was here, she wanted to get hair color.  “I can’t stand it,” she said of her black and red striped hair.  I obliged, hoping she’d go back to blonde.  It’s what looks most normal.  It might even be her natural color.

Safeway is where she wanted to go, so to Safeway we went.  The hair color aisle is dangerous to me.  A decade ago I bought products from this very same lane.  I was not dealing with my crappy first marriage and ended up here.  I needed something cheap to make me feel better about myself.  I bought a box with a picture of a woman with great hair.

I took it home and followed the directions.  I didn’t end up with great hair; I ended up with no hair.  What didn’t fall out turned bright orange.  I put on a hat and returned for another product with another picture of a woman with great hair. 

Again, I didn’t get great hair.  I got green hair, dark cesspool green.  On went the hat and out went the $10 for another box.  This time I bought a brownish color and left it in, suffering for months.  I looked as mousy on the outside as I felt inside.  I couldn’t get a comb through the dull strings.  I might have felt bad about myself, but I shouldn’t have punished my hair.

I stayed away for a decade.  I stayed away this time, too, for a while.  I walked in the opposite direction and picked up a few things.  Jenn was taking a while so I ended up in the danger aisle anyway, looking for her.  She was there still, standing and staring.  She had a box in her hand.

“Did you decide on a color?”

“Yeah,” she said.  She showed me her box of almost-black hair dye.  I thought that look was popular a decade ago.  I thought the only people who still dyed their hair black are Gothy.  She hates Goths.  It grows back, I thought.

“That’ll cover up whatever’s on there now,” I said.

“I don’t want to do black because you can’t dye over black.  There’s black on there, though, so I got really dark brown.”

She reached up and pulled another box off the shelf.

“I was thinking about this color for you.”

“Oh no,” I said.  I was about to tell her I don’t do Safeway hair colors unless I want to wear a bag over my head.  I looked at the box, though, out of curiosity.

The picture was of a pretty, happy woman with great hair.  It was a nice, non-orange color, lighter than my hair normally.  It’s the kind of hair I wish I had. 

My sisters both have platinum blonde hair.  Whenever anyone grouped them together, as people often did because I was different, they were “the blonde sisters.”  My hair isn’t dark, but it isn’t that cottony white.  I grew up anything but cottony white in other ways.  The blonde sisters were obedient and logical, like my left-brained parents.  I blame my teenaged rebellion on my hair.  Everything about me was darker.

“You’d look good with this,” Jenn said.  “I’ll put it on you.  It’ll be fun.”

If I was strong and normal and said no, you wouldn’t be reading this.  No isn’t easy for me to say.  People don’t like hearing it, especially when they seem to have a better idea and sound like they know what they’re talking about.  She must know what she’s talking about.  She dyes her hair more than I cut my nails.

I sat on the toilet while she squeezed a bottle of pink stuff on my head.  I washed it out, dried it and hoped I didn’t have a tabby cat resting on my scalp.  I didn’t.  I had a dull brown stringy monkey sitting there instead.  I told everyone I liked it, forgot about it and went out for pizza.  When I went to use the restroom, I looked in the mirror and thought it was someone else.  Someone with a monkey on her head.

Two months later, the monkey faded.  I was getting gas one sunny day last week and happened to catch my reflection in the rear view mirror.  Again, I didn’t recognize myself.  I had the same hair color as my daughter’s friend, a true freckled redhead.  It may have taken two months, but there it was: the long-lost tabby cat.

I went back to Safeway as soon as Jenn left.  I bought another box.  This time I got the same almost-black Jenn got two months ago.  She was happy with it.  I thought I’d just pull a few strands through a highlighting cap.  The General had one somewhere from last summer when she wanted blonder hair.  I didn’t want to go to extremes.

I washed it out and I noticed the almost black coloring had leaked through the highlighting cap.  What wasn’t almost-black was tabby cat orange.  There were chunks of hair with both orange and black stripes where the color leaked through.  The black didn’t take on the ends so that part was light green.  No comb was ever getting through, either.

I put it up in a clip like I always do and forgot about it.  Nobody said anything since my hair’s in a clip.  I didn’t point it out, either.  I decided it was time to get it cut before someone noticed the green.

I sat down at a chair in the closest, cheapest hair cutting place, coincidentally next door to Safeway.  “Just cut a lot of it off,” I said.  “I don’t know what to do with it.”

“What’s this?”

She pulled up a chunk of my hair from the back which looked like someone had spray painted vertical black stripes on it.  “Halloween came a little early this year?”

“I didn’t know it was that bad.”  It looked worse in the fluorescent lighting.

“From this angle, I see everything.  If you do anything else, it’ll all break off.  Mind if I put conditioner on it? I can’t get a comb through.”

“Oh yeah.”

She cut it in a style popular with the kids right now and it looks nice.  Nobody knows it’s cut because I put it up in a clip.  You can’t see the green parts that way.

Every time I passed by a mirror today, I’ve looked at my hair.  I never do this; I’m usually too busy eavesdropping to think about myself.  Honestly, I’ve worn the same clothes three days in a row.  I avoid the reflection.

I keep thinking, “I’ve got to do something.  I’ve got to do it now.”  I’m too cheap and embarrassed to go back to the hair cutter but I should.  She’s a professional.  She has the tools and the knowledge to make it look like human hair again.

I notice everyone’s hair.  There’s a woman sitting near me with maroon hair.  I know that came from a box.  One of my friends used to do that color on her hair.  That might look good.  Across the way is a woman with pretty, very short, very blonde hair.  I could cut all mine off and do that.  Charlie would be happy and I wouldn’t need clips.  Another woman walked by with blonde streaks on dark hair.  I like that look, too.  Anything’s better than green-tipped tiger stripes.

I’m resisting the urge to rush back to the danger aisle.  I know there’s a box with my name on it at Safeway.  All I have to do is drive.  It’d take much less time than going to the place next door full of professionals and fluorescent lighting. 

Either way, I can’t comb my hair.  It’ll end up imitating some sort of animal and hiding in a clip.  I might as well save my money and hide in the convenience of my own bathroom to try to get rid of the tiger stripes.  It can’t get worse, can it?

I promise I’ll try not to be tempted by a picture of a woman with great hair.

A little help? [] 1:43:12 PM