Just a Hair

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All I wanted to do was get back to my roots.
Well, ok...get RID of my roots is more like it.
I wanted to be blonde!

When I was little my hair was white-blonde and shiny.  Never mind that my mom cut it into a bowl shape and curled it under all around so I looked like the little boy in the Buster Brown shoe ad.  It stayed pretty light until my teens, and even then it might darken a bit in winter, but the summer sun turned it gold again in no time.

But then I birthed Parker.  And neither my body nor my hair has ever been the same.  I turned into a brunette.  Deciding that God knew what he was doing in the first place, I found a hairdresser and began changing it back.

Fastforward 15 years, when a routine visit to the beauty shop for highlights somehow took a wrong turn, frying the ends of my hair and forcing me to go back to the dark side for a few months if I wanted to avoid going bald. It was fine for the winter.  But now it's summer.  And I want to be Chelsea Kane.

Concerned about keeping my hair healthy, my hairdresser tried a new product on me.  I should have known something was wrong when she washed it 3 times before she let my head out of the sink.  She frowned and she blow-dryed.  She applied lots of gel and hairspray, mumbling something under her breath about "turning those streaks darker".  And then she said, "Do you have to go anywhere today?"
Uh-oh.
She turned me around to face the mirror and there I was with a cute new cut...and blue streaks in my blonde hair!
"Actually," I replied, "I have to go to Parker's basketball games this evening."
"Well, do you have a ball cap?"  she asked.
I just looked at her.  I do not wear hats.
She sniffed.  "Well, sit up at the top of the bleachers."
I think she wanted to re-do my head then and there, but she was already backed up by an hour.  We made a plan for me to come back in two days, and she finally let me leave.

I rushed home to grab a few things before heading to the gym.  Hillary's car was in the driveway.  I tried to duck in and out before she saw me, but I heard her yell up the stairs, "Mom?"
Darn.
She bounded up the steps.  She stopped.  "Wow!"  and then "Mom, I'm so proud of you!"
Of course she would assume I'd done it on purpose.  It's exactly the kind of Rock Star thing she would do.
Then she added, "Come meet my friends."
I came halfway down the stairs trying to keep my head in the stairwell and gave a half-hearted wave and a "nice to meet you" to her friends.  The handsome young man who is Hill's new boyfriend, gallantly said hello, hiding his surprise that his girlfriend's mom looked like a character from the X Men.

I made my escape and sped to the ballgame.  Where I sat in the car waiting for Parker to come out.
I texted him.  i'm in the parking lot.
He texted back.  come in.
can u come out?
y can't u come in?
Um...because I have blue hair?
I pulled the food card.  i thot u wanted to get something 2 eat.
im coming out
Sigh.

Ever the honest son, he took one look at me and said, "Whoa.  That's really blonde."
I turned to face him full-on.
"With blue streaks..." he continued.
As we drove toward McDonalds he said, "I'm not gonna lie...that's gonna take some getting used to."
"The blonde?" I asked.
"No, I'm already used to the blonde," he said.  "I'm talking about the blue."
Great.

He had one game left.  By this point, I had facebooked my dilemma and gotten helpful feedback from loving friends.  I decided to march into that gym, with it's ultra-violet lighting, and Rock this Look like somebody's momma.
So I did.
And you know what?  No one even seemed to notice.
These people know what's truly important in life...basketball.

So maybe it wasn't so bad.  And maybe I tend to over-react...just a hair.