Psst...Call Crimestoppers!

So my daughter’s friend told me yesterday I could play a witch in some production they were concocting.

“Is it because of my ginormous streaks of white hair?” I asked. She nodded.

Yes, indeed, I had a bit of the old Bride o’ Frankenstein action going on thanks to a number of factors: my advanced age, the lack of haircut since before Christmas, the lack of any sort of colour treatment since Jesus wore short pants,¹ and my advanced age.

Since it’s tax season and I am therefore one bounced cheque away from debtors’ gaol, I decided to colour my hair myself. ² My daughter and I had picked out a colour last week—it was sort of reddish brown on the model, but on top of mouse brown hair like mine, it should have turned to a rich brown with a tinge of auburn.

Operative words being “should have.”

You know when someone with dark hair robs a bank and goes on the lam and they dye their hair so NO ONE WILL EVER RECOGNIZE THEM? And they won’t stand out at all now that their hair is a colour that CANNOT BE FOUND IN NATURE? Or in mob movies, where there’s one guy³ who tries to go all Hollywood and he dyes his hair “blonde”? Or my grandmother, who is Lebanese and (presumably) has black hair and whose main desire in life is apparently to be a blonde so she keeps trying to dye her hair “blonde”?

Aside from if you pour a bottle of peroxide onto your hair à la Ponyboy Curtis, or if you know that Jose guy who does celebrity hair,⁴ chances are you’re not going to get blonde (or in my case, rich brown with coppery undertones) in any of those cases. No. You are going to get a surreal orangish colour that is just—weird.⁵

So that’s what colour my hair is right now. At least in the front. I have no idea what it looks like in the back—it could be stripy clown hair back there for all I know.⁶

Now, as I sit here trying my best to make comic blonde out of my Pesci-head situation, I think to myself, “It’s not as bad as I’m describing it.” So I go have another look.

It is. It is, in fact, THAT bad.

Frigg it. I’m robbing a bank.

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1. I don’t really know what that means, but it sounds funny so I say it all the time.

2. Back in the days before self employment/destitution, I would go to a shop to get lovely multi-colour highlights that cost a bloody fortune and took two hours. Time and money. Or, two things I simply can no longer afford to squander.

3. Usually Joe Pesci or that Joey Pants guy.

4. But who apparently doesn’t have access to a mirror to see his own lid.

5. Sorry Grandma.

6. Don’t colour your hair alone. Case in point: “Rinse until the water runs clear.” Uh, you just told me 6 times that if I got this shit in my eyes I AND MY FUTURE OFFSPRING WOULD GO BLIND. How the hell am I supposed to keep my eyes covered/shut tight AND watch the water drain off? Phone a friend, people.⁷

7. Of course, not only did I NOT phone a friend, I didn’t do the 48-hour allergy test either. That’s the kind of crazy gansta-bitch I am. Word.