Ya can't take me anywhere. Well, you can, but you can't make me keep my mouth shut.

So I went to get my hair cut today, which is you understand a euphemism. I went to get my hair colored. The cut was an afterthought. Anyhow, I usually go Monday mornings when the kids are at the one day a week homeschool enrichment program that has sadly, oh so sadly, ended for the year. Monday mornings are quiet, nary a soul to be seen. Wednesday afternoons, on the other hand, are not quiet. People are getting their nails done, people are wandering out of the massage rooms, looking dazed, people are arriving for hair cuts. Men, women, children - the place was hopping.
So after a quick consultation, Kristi (my hair genius – whose genius has been shaky of late) gooped up my roots with hair goop and sent me to read a magazine. I was sitting there, somewhat uncomfortably, looking like Medusa among the many patrons. Now, I blame what happened next on the article I was reading. The basic premise of it seemed to be “Let’s see what happens when we send this model out to exercise in her underwear and push-up bra!” There were pictures of this woman, leaning on a passing man’s arm so she could fish a rock out of her shoe, rollerblading past a group of young men who were threatening to burst veins in their heads from the intense oogling, and heaven help us, her power walking. Which, she says, should never be done in a push up bra. Ah. Thank God I read that before planning my weekend.
So I was sitting there, thinking about how I’d die, I’d just die if I walked out my front door in my underwear. I mean, I apologize to myself if I see me in my underwear. Roller blading? Aside from the obvious abrasion risks, it would cause me to just seize and die from sheer shame.
I was pondering this when Kristi came over to do…something to my hair. I don’t know, I don’t ask. She poked at my head a bit, then turned to leave me to my magazine.
“Oh,” she said, “I spilled some stuff on your cape. Let me get a towel.” She came back with a towel and sponged off the front of the plastic clothing protective cape I was wearing. One of the drips was apparently over my right breast, and she laughed. “Sorry about feeling you up there.” She turned to walk back to her station, so I raised my voice just a bit so she could hear me. Over all the people.
“That’s ok!” I called out blithely, “it’s the most action I’ve seen in years!”
Silence.
Save for the sound of heads turning.
Eyebrows rising.
I looked back at…everyone…searching for some addendum to my statement that would make it sound better. There didn’t seem to be one, so I buried my face in my magazine.
I guess that’ll teach me to judge the stupidity of others, huh?

Comments

[Heather]

oh, here's one for ya...

last time i was so sick and puking my guts up in the bathroom, we got a visitor. hubby called down the hall to tell me but i did not hear over the fan running, me ralphing and the toilet flushing. duh!!! i came out in just my panties, 8 months pregnant to discover a teen boy in my den.

i felt, at that moment, as if god hated me

[Linda Sherwood]

Well, at least your humiliation served a higher purpose... giving me a great laugh! Of course, I'm laughing with you. You are laughing, right?

[Jen]

OMGoodness! That's funny!!! You have a wicked sense of humor...too bad it was wasted on those yokels! *I'd* have laughed!

(btw, I'm a friend of Tori, Lani, Theresa and AGK, that's how I found you ;-)

[Toni]

Well, I'm not sure if this is much consolation, but that's exactly the sort of thing I'd say. And, oddly enough, I'm sitting here typing in my (matronly, white, bullet, Playtex, nursing) bra, having just spilled root beer all over the front of one of my 3 shirts that still fit.

So what color do you dye your hair? How'd it turn out?

[AGK]

Chuck-a-lucka! Hows come no one ever blurts stuff out like that around me? Oh wait...it usually IS me!

[Keri]

I'd have been laughing! What a great line! I never come up with lines like that. I'd have thought of it hours later and WISHED I'd have said it. Well, not really since I'm married and it wouldn't have worked quite as well coming from ME, but that was classic, Ki. Good humor.

[Sheri]

Thanks for the belly laugh today!

[Lisa]

Hey, at least you gave everyone something to talk about after you left, right? Consider it a public service. ;) LOL

[unruly]

ah hell. if you would've done that in new york or san francisco:

san francisco: would've laughed, possessing a sense of humor

new york: everyone's too behind their protective barriers to bother noticing anyone else.

i personally don't see it as embarrassing, but i'm probably too weird to hang out with beauty salon folk

[Mir]

I totally would've said that. And then buried my head in the magazine. And known that my face--normally the whitest white possible for a live human--was turning purple from embarrassment.

And my version has always been: You can take me anywhere... twice. The second time to apologize.

[Jensgalore]

I tend to blurt out things like that and then blush like craxy - especially around my husband, which he thinks is just too funny for words.