Hair today, blonde tomorrow.

I don’t take pristine hair for granted. I realize that nice hair is a delicate balance of maintenance and a good stylist. I don’t ignore my hair or pay it too much attention. I blow dry, but gently. I don’t use hairspray. I don’t curl. I get haircuts regularly to keep my ends healthy. I condition. I’m generally good to my hair, and it is generally good to me. I’m aware that my hair is fragile. One false move with a pair of scissors and my generally decent hair could be a goner. I don’t take pristine hair for granted.

Excuse the cliché, but I never thought this could happen to me. I’m careful. I’m a good girl. I don’t mess around with flat irons or hot rollers. I keep my hair clean, and I stay out of trouble. What I should have stayed out of though, was the salon.

I got my hair cut. A beautiful, bouncy little cut. Shoulder length with body and sass. (Sassy hair is a person goal that I rarely attain). Feeling confident in my stylist, I asked for highlights. A little dash of light to add some punch to my new sassy cut.

“I’d like to see a difference,” I told Tami The Stylist. “I want to be able to tell that it is different.”
“Nothing too light,“ I added. “I don’t want white.”

I don’t want white. I said it as a joke. As if Tami could ever imagine that white streaks would compliment my normally dirty blonde hair with auburn highlights (yes, Dad, I have auburn highlights).

“You look so hot,” Tami told me confidently as she turned me away from the mirror and began to dry my hair, “You aren’t going to walk out of here. You are going to strut.”

The result of hours of bonnet wearing, hair pulling, bleach applying, hair dryer sitting torture was a disastrous mess of bleach blonde, white stripes on one side of my head and a chunk of fried white strands on the other. It looked like Tami The Stylist had pulled the hair on the left side of my head into a ponytail, applying Paris Hilton bleach blonde liberally then painting the other side of my head with a zebra pattern of bleach.

“I’m not happy,” I said as my fingers searched for some sign of my natural hair color in the shock of white on the left side of my head. No luck.

“You just aren’t used to looking this sexy,” Tami lied. “You are just surprised.”

“No,” I promised, “I’m not happy.”

I left with a promise that Tami The Stylist would “tone” the color if I slept on it and still didn’t like it.

I didn’t like it.

I went home and immediately climbed into bed. I pulled the covers over my head and called friends for comfort. Most didn’t believe the extent of the disaster now growing from my head. Friends and family alike demanded pictures. Scott offered me a hat. Someone suggested I get a scarf. I cried. (Uh, thanks J and J for listening to me cry. I appreciate your sympathy).

I tried several barrette maneuvers. I tried a little something involving headbands. I experiments with kerchiefs. I accomplished a complex cover using a makeshift scarf that I knitted before a ski trip last year, but it was too hard to make it stay on. I considered a skull cap and a baseball hat. I decided on a visor. With careful placement, I could tuck the worst of the white under the visor and the rest inside a messy bun low on my back of head.

I wore the visor all Saturday night, taking it off only to make Scott my witness as to how bad my hair was. He laughed so hard that I thought he might fall off the couch. He doubled over from the power of his guffaws. It was very supportive. Thanks Scott.

My sense of humor started to return, slowly. I posed for pictures, holding my bleached hair out from my head like little white wings. When I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, my head was white from the center of my forehead over to my left ear and dirty blonde with auburn highlights from the center of my forehead to my right ear. It was baaad.

I went back Sunday morning. I was kind enough not to wear my hat into the salon. I thought it might make Tami The Stylist feel bad. She worked miracles. In less than an hour, she had tamed my follicle nightmare into a sassy, honey-colored do.

“Next time we do this,” Tami said confidently, “I’ll have a better idea of what you like.” She looked at me in the mirror as stylists often do. I looked back as girls who’ve had recently traumatic hair experiences often do.

“Maybe we’ll wait a little while on that,” she said. I smiled and left.

I went grocery shopping and left the visor in the car.