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Blonde Obsession

I decided to be a blonde once. Well, actually. It wasn’t me who decided. It was my hairdresser Maggie’s idea, and I went along.

“Wish I was born with lighter hair,” I complained to her, as she was cutting away, “This dark hair is so harsh.”
“But it’s your natural color”, she said, “It was the way God meant it to be.”
“It doesn’t look like my natural color. Look at my skin. It’s light, like my mothers’. Her hair is lighter, and it looks great on her.”

“So you see yourself with lighter hair,” she speculated, “A blonde, maybe?”
“I wish,” I said, “But it would never work. You would have to bleach all of my color out—that would be impossible.”
“There’s no such thing as impossible in Maggie’s Shamrock Salon.” she said, as she whipped out a package and held it in front of my face.

I liked what I saw—a picture of a blonde, not quite like the 1970s sensation, Twiggy, not totally Marilyn Munroe, but a nice looking woman, with my exact hair style. I already felt like I was having more fun.

“Let’s do it” I said, and Maggie and I clinked coffee cups, then she went to work.
When she was done, three hours later, my hair was not only a beautiful blonde, it was curly, with lots of ‘body’—the dye does that sometimes, Maggie said.

I loved my ‘new look’!

I loved it. I went home and made all of the usual faces in front of the mirror, front view smile, side view, silly look, pouty look. I looked great in all of the poses, it was the ‘new me’!

When my children came in from the neighbors’ they didn’t have much to say: My ten year old son, wolfing down a snack on his way to a soccer game, thought it was ‘okay’. My nine year old daughter, on the way to play with her friend said, “It’s really nice, Mummy!”, and my husband, who never liked surprises, said, “If you like it, I like it.” By Monday, the novelty wore off, and while I still liked my blonde hair, it was ‘old hat’.

I didn’t give it a another thought as I drove to my school on Monday, going through the lessons for my grade one class in my mind, the way I usually did. I got to the staff room before anyone else, and poured a cup of coffee, then headed to my classroom. Before long, I could hear my little students in the cloakroom, dropping off their lunch kits on the way out for 5 minutes of play.

Just before the bell rang, Helen, the teacher in the classroom next to mine, popped her head in the door.

“Oh,” she said, “I was going to see who your substitute was, but you’re here after all.”

“Of course I am, what made you think I wasn’t?”

But the announcements went on, and we couldn’t talk. I stood at the door as the children filed in and took their seats, ready to begin the day.

 It gets curiouser and curiouser

Right away, Bonnie, who liked to think she ran the class, put her hand up and chirped,

“Aren’t you going to write your name on the board?”

“No,” I answered, “Why would I do that?”

“So we know who you are!” three or four children chimed out.

“This isn’t April Fool’s Day, is it? “I said “You already know who I am!”

I looked at them. Twenty nine pairs of eyes looked back. No one was smiling. Their first assignment of the day, drawing a Valentine picture, lay on their desks, untouched. I tried another tack.

“Okay, now I understand,” I said. “My hair is so different, you can hardly tell it’s me. I got my hair dyed on Friday, but I’m still Mrs. Peters, and I want you to start your work.”

I let them think about it for a minute. They seemed to accept that, and picked up their crayons to begin.

It was Monday, so we had lots of new things to do. They were usually so happy and cooperative, but they were a bit hard to manage this morning. They balked at everything, it seemed. Maybe they were excited about the Valentine party tomorrow, I thought. The morning ground on, and finally it was almost time for recess.

Suddenly, Charles, a usually quiet boy, said, “Mrs. Peters always lets us go 5 minutes early.”

“No she doesn’t,” I snapped. “I mean, no I don’t”

“Yes she does, yes she does,” they all insisted, all twenty nine faces turned up to me. “C’mon,” they said, in chorus, and started to line up behind Charles at the door.

“Sit down!” I said, “I AM MRS. PETERS AND I NEVER LET YOU GO EARLY!”

Twenty-nine pairs of eye looked at me in shock. Several children crossed their arms and stood their ground. Bonnie gave me a cold look.

“Mrs. Peters never yells at us.” she said.

32 thoughts on “Blonde Obsession”

    1. Still the Lucky Few

      I’ve heard that teachers sleep in the class storeroom, and of course they never change! Thanks, Pat.

  1. Cute story. I became a blond at a certain age and any time I would make a mistake at work, my colleagues would roll their eyes and say, “It’s because you’re a blond now.”

  2. I have always admired women who change their hair color regularly. I’ve had pretty much the same color and style since I was a little girl (although my blond no longer comes naturally). I had a friend who went RED once and I was so tempted to try it too… but nope. I think that I’m afraid that everyone will notice and I’ll get unwanted attention (says the introvert), or that no one will notice and I’d feel bad.

    1. Still the Lucky Few

      I decided to have my hair dyed an outrageous red about two years ago, after my 75th birthday. It was fun, but took too much maintenance, so I’m back to mousy brown.

  3. I went a kind of deep red/brown for many years and I loved it – but then it became too much to keep it that way (after DH). Now I’m in the salt/pepper look with a lot more salt IMHO than the pepper…

    I remember one year (probably the start of the drift-away from DH); I came out to get his breakfast and he immediately said

    “you silly cow – you’ve got paint in your hair, where the hell did you get that?”

    I waltzed back to the bathroom and could see no paint…so I asked him to point it out (he was behind me then) well he did point out something but it wasn’t paint!

    No it had been there for months, a large bit of natural silver…

    (silly cow was not an endearment – decide for yourself what sort of man he was & just be glad that I did finally see the light to move on…)

  4. Reality check! I wanted to grey soon as I was managing people much older than I was. I ended up naturally grey and to add insult to injury, bald as well. All the children and the grand children in the family love to come and kiss the bald pate!

  5. Oh my gosh, Diane, this is too funny! How ironic that the process worked out beautifully and ended up complicating your life. Little kids are so interesting in the way they see things. I wonder how fast you decided to go back to your normal hairdo.
    PS I stopped coloring my hair (I’m completely gray now) about two years ago. My salon visits went from $1500 / 30 hours a year to $230 / 3 hours a year (no shampoo or styling; 20 minutes total!!) SO happy with the decision.

    1. Still the Lucky Few

      Glad that you ‘got’ it. As a writer, you can appreciate my concern that some of my short stories might be a little too subtle. I love writing them, and hope to do more in this vein. BTW, I called Maggie that day, and she remedied it that night! BTW, I am going gray very gradually, (mostly around my temples), so I’m still touching it up every couple of months—which leaves me with a mousy ‘brownish’ look!

    1. Still the Lucky Few

      I always start with something that actually happened. Fortunately, my life has been full of ups and downs! Thanks for your interest, Joared!

  6. What a delightful , well written story this is, Diane. As a teacher myself, I could visualize the entire thing. The last line made me laugh aloud. Reading your blog started my day off very well. Thank you.

    1. Still the Lucky Few

      A big Thank You to you, Aunt Beulah! Looking back, teaching had it’s precious moments, and this was one of them! I loved children, and can still recall some of the amazing things they said. I did take some notes, but truly wished I had kept a diary!

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