Dye Another Day

I glanced at myself in the mirror, and tilted my head up and to the left, a scoff plastered to my face.

"What? What is it?" the man asked from the bathroom doorway.

"It's my hair, it's gotten all dully," I replied, a disgusted tone in the back of my voice. "I think I'm going to dye it again, all dark and sultry." I shimmied my shoulders and pushed past him through the door. Definitely a good decision, I reassured myself. It was true, my hair had gotten "dully." It wasn't at all shimmery, and had no defining hue at all. As a matter of fact, it was getting dangerously close to my natural hair colour - a mousy light-brown. Mennonite brown.

"What are you talking about? It looks fine! It's not dull, it's pretty!" The man insisted from the hallway, while I busied myself gathering what I'd need for my shift at work. "It's sort of summery, in a way, really. I like it."

"Well I don't, it's got to change. I can't afford to go to the salon, though, I can hardly afford my ruffles chip addiction as it is. I'm going to stop by Wal Mart on my way home and pick up a box of something chestnutty."

"If that's what you want to do, then that's fine. I'm sure Kit or Chels could dye it for you." His voice was uncertain, my friends were always so busy. Neither of us were sure I'd be able to get one of the girls to come down and dye my hair before the wedding I planned to attend in a couple of days. Still, it had to be done somehow, even if I had to do it myself.

That afternoon I found "Cappuccino" on the second lowest shelf in the health and beauty department. Garnier Nutrisse Cream seemed pretty dependable, and the girl on the box seemed quite satisfied with her own hair colouring outcome. I bought two boxes, however, since I've got quite a bit of area to cover on this head of mine. I headed home.

"Guess what you get to do tonight?" I said, feigning excitement, as the man shot me a skeptical look. He could read me like a children's book.

"What..." His eyes narrowed, and his hands rested on his hips as a devious smile spread across my face.

"I couldn't find anyone to dye my hair, so you get to do the honours! Doesn't it sound like fun? It'll be easy, I've done it a thousand times!" I sounded pretty sure of myself, given my extensive acting experience, but he seemed completely unconvinced and a wave of panic spread over his face.

"Oh no, absolutely not! There is no way I'm doing that! That's waaaaay too big a deal, if it doesn't turn out..." He began scratching his scalp frantically, going over the consequences in his mind. "No, no, no. Not going to happen, you'll have to do it yourself."

"Nooo! I need you, bud! I can't see it in the back, and I'll never be able to tell if I got the roots!" After a few more minutes of pleading he finally agreed, under the pretenses that he would not be held responsible should the outcome be less than desirable. Agreed.

The evening finally came and he followed me fearfully into the bathroom where I roosted in my most ugly of clothes on a stool in the middle of the room. He picked at the box with his fingertips, a specialist in the beginnings of difusing a bomb. He carefully lifted the three components out of the cardboard, and pulled the made-for-women latex gloves over his fingers. "Great, this is a good start," he grumbled, realizing the gloves barely reached his wrists, and his fingers were now webbed. "You can still back out," he warned. "I haven't ruined anything yet."

"Nonsense!" I proclaimed confidently. How hard can it be?

We mixed the components and began the science experiment on my head. I instructed him to cover the roots first, and then work his way down to the tips. I told him each hair had to be fully penetrated with the solution, and anything left dry would stay light. As I rambled on about the procedure, his eyes widened and the pressure threatened to break him. But, he soldiered on.

He squeezed the bottle slowly over the part in my hai...

"What are you doing?!"
"What? What?? I haven't done anything yet!"
"You're doing it way too slowly! That's not nearly enough to penetrate the roots! You've got to squeeze more!"
"But I don't want it to run ou..."
"Don't worry about that! There are two boxes! This isn't that hard."

He squeezed more solution over my hair. He gently patted it down into my scalp and...

"What are you doing?! What are you doing?!"
"I'm rubbing it in like you said!"
"You've got to do it more quickly, and harder! You're not painting my hair, you're supposed to be soaking my hair!"

He rolled his eyes, grumbled again, and continued. He squeezed an abundance of solution over a section of hair, and frantically, forcefully, rubbed it in. Good, this was the way. He was learning, slowly but surely. This would be done in no time!

The man got through half my head before I got so fed up I had to put on the second pair of latex gloves and do some hands-on assisting. The partnership actually worked for a while, despite the fact that the concept of not-dying my face never really got through to him. In the end I turned out looking very badly beaten around my hair line, and like I had some sort of circulation problem in my extremely purple ears. But the job was finished, two boxes later, and the man could finally relax. For 25 minutes. The results would dictate his fate in the end.

I stepped into the shower and rinsed the solution out, carelessly spraying red-purple dye all over the white tiles and cream-coloured shower curtain. Suddenly I found myself in a scene from Psycho, and began frantically collecting water in my hands and flinging it onto the walls. I did manage to rescue the bathroom, that is to say, everything but the giant purple smear across the bathroom door. This little souvenier was only discovered hours later, and will be a badge of honour for years to come I'm sure.

I blowdried my hair, and emerged from the steamy laboratory into the living room where a very nervous hair stylist sat, awaiting his doom.

"It turned out!" I shrieked triumphantly. He lept from the couch and lifted his arms in victory, and we danced around the room in our glorious success.

"Don't you ever make me do that again!"
"But you did such a great job..."
"No, absolutely not. Out of the question."

And after we ooed and awed over my delicious new hair colour, we paused and looked each other for a moment of silence.

In memory of those who dyed today.