Stupid things I've done

The lovely Cicada and Redlaw do such a good job of telling Days of Yore stories that I wanted to have a go at it myself. Please forgive me if mine aren't as good as theirs. Also keep it to yourself if that's what you think.

To people who know me in real life, please forgive me if you've heard this story before. And if you actually participated in said story, then it's me who should be deciding whether to forgive you.

I spent New Year's Eve 1995 (turning 1996) at a friend's house. We had a big huge party, and then the boys went home and the girls had a sleepover. In the morning, the hostess friend, whom we will call K, decided that she wanted to dye her hair a bit blonder. Please keep in mind the following things:

1. This was in Alaska.
2. Alaskan teenagers did not get highlights in salons.
3. Alaskan teenagers didn't even know about salons. Or highlights. Or fashion, for that matter.
4. This information will be important later.

We all drove through the snow to the local drugstore (the only drugstore) in our pajamas so that she could pick out a box of dye. As I browsed the Hair Chemicals aisle, my eye was caught by a box of Clairol Natural Instincts Copper Sunrise, which promised to turn my hair a gorgeous copper red. At the time, I had very long dark blond hair, and I thought red would just look sooooo great with my fair (read: pastier than the underside of a halibut) skin and blue eyes.

I picked up the box and asked the other girls what they thought, and they all said it was a great idea. Of course, it was easy for them to say that because it wasn't their hair. So because I was 1) sixteen, 2) stupid and sleep-deprived, and 3) encouraged by my idiot sleep-deprived friends, I bought the stuff. I tried to find the color on the Clairol website to show you, but it has possibly been recalled in the manner of other dangerous things, like cars that spontaneously burst into flames or strollers that eat babies. This is the closest I could find.

Do keep in mind that mine was more Coppery, though. And, lest you think I am a complete idiot, do know that I purposely bought a dye that was supposed to wash out after 18 washes. I mean, I was thinking. Kind of. Partly.

We got back to K's house and got down to bidness. K did hers first, and because I had such long hair and had never dyed it before, she helped me with mine. When she was done I started drying my hair, because you can never really tell what it's up to when it's wet. As I dried, I started to notice that some sections of my hair had turned copper, while others . . . hadn't, so much. Like, pretty much everything from eyebrow-level down was still dark blond. I finished quickly with the drying, feeling a little bit anxious now, and faced the mirror to see the damage.

And o, my friends, what damage it was. I had a copper stripe down the top and back of my head. And it looked about as horrible as you think that might look. But I still thought, "Hey, that's okay, it's only semi-permanent. I'll just go home and wash my hair a bunch of times and it'll be out before you know it."

So I washed my hair pretty much all day Saturday.
Then I stayed home from church on Sunday and washed it some more.

I eventually had to stop washing it because my fingers lost feeling and were nothing but frozen prune sticks. Also hypothermia was just around the corner, because this was Alaska in January and my dad didn't believe in heating, and so you just didn't get wet and naked all the time, willy-nilly like that. You had to respect the elements!!! So while I washed, and washed, and washed, and washed, I learned a few important things:

1. Those Clairol people are $£%&* !"&^$%£$ *&£^&$ lying liars.
2. My hair hangs on to the color red like The Precious hangs onto other people's electronics: With great passion, steely resolve, and the splintered shrieks of a banshee that has been set on fire.

I told WR this story, and when I got to the part where it just wouldn't wash out, he nodded and said, "So then your mum had to take you to the salon to have it fixed, huh."

Blink.

Blink. Blink.

Me: Um . . . no, actually. I . . . don't know if she even suggested it.

WR: So . . . did you have to go and pay for it yourself then?

Blink.

Me: Well . . . no. I never went to a salon.

WR: Wait, you didn't? You just left it like that?

Blink. Blink.

Me: Huh. Um. . . yeah. . . I don't think it ever occurred to me that someone could fix it!"

So, my question here, is why the heck didn't my mom take me to the salon? Why didn't I think of it either? I mean, they probably had them somewhere, even if we were living in the frozen Arctic tundra--we could have found at least one! I had money, I could have given it to them! So why did I spend three months of my high-school career walking around with a pink skunk stripe in my hair when I didn't have to???

So the story itself is an embarassing one. But now it's topped by the embarrassment of how it took 10 years and a BOY to point out the obvious solution.

Posted in: England