Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 22, 1995 TAG: 9508230103
SECTION: WELCOME STUDENTS PAGE: WS-61 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
I was tired of my dirty-blond hair. That's what brought me storming past the large bin of Milk-Duds on sale for 99 cents. Past the woman with her hair in plastic pink curlers swatting her toddler's hand away from a bag of Oreos. That's what made me oblivious to all as I went straight to the hair-color aisle at Wal- Mart. That's what made me select it.
Russet. ``Too drastic,'' my friend Maureen warned. She was pulling for the Cinnamon.
``Go for it,'' I heard a voice say. I turned to see a cute, brown-haired girl standing behind me. She smiled at me and added ``it washes out in two or three weeks.''
I looked at Maureen. She pushed the Cinnamon box into my hand. Then I looked back at the anonymous girl.
``Rus-sette,'' she said in a way that made it sound foreign, mysterious, like the hair color of a beautiful Russian spy who seduces men and steals classified documents.
I always listen to Maureen. The voice of reason that stops me from making a fool out of myself. Maureen, not only my close friend, but the ego for my id as well.
But the Russet was beckoning to me, it would not be dismissed. Besides, Maureen had spent the majority of her life in Catholic school wearing plaid skirts and penny loafers. What did she know about living on the edge?
Like the proverbial angel and devil on each shoulder, there was Maureen bathed in bright light holding the Cinnamon hair-dye, and there was the nameless girl and the Russet, not recommended for blonde hair.
Peer pressure from a stranger at Wal-Mart. I grabbed the Russet. I caved in.
I knew Maureen didn't approve and I knew my mother definitely wouldn't. (She believes bleaching hair and prostitution are one in the same.)
I ignored Maureen's tactful comments on the way to the cashier such as, ``I just want to make sure you're going to be happy with the results.'' I knew what she was really thinking, "you're going to look really dumb."
Girls will be girls, I thought to myself, she's just afraid the Russet will make me too beautiful, that all the guys are going to be staring at me now. At the check-out I plunked down $4.95, a small price to pay for a gorgeous new me. I didn't even notice the models on all the beauty magazines nestled among the condoms and Chicklets. Today, they had nothing on me.
``Have a nice day,'' the cashier said with a pop of her bubble gum for effect. Nice day, indeed, I thought, this would be a day unlike any other. A whole new horizon would open up to me after I slopped this goop on my hair. ``I ave ze documents, meet me at ze train station in Moscow en un our,'' I imagined myself whispering into a telephone.
At Maureen's apartment, I run upstairs and stick my head in the sink, working the red-colored slime into my hair. I look up and catch Maureen staring at me. I wish she wouldn't do that, it makes me very nervous.
We wait. 20 minutes the box says. I flip through the issue of Cosmopolitan. In 20 minutes I learn how to snag a rich man, make Chinese Chicken Salad, and I take a quiz to see if my boyfriend really loves me.
As I go to rinse my hair, I think of the sirens in Greek mythology, my hair like their enchanting voices, might not drive sailors overboard to their deaths, but it could lure the cute guy in my poetry class to gaze over my way. Ahh, ``poetry boy,'' as he's known to my friends and I. A name for him would ruin the mystique.
I rinse my hair, and as I do, I think of poetry boy, Russian spies, and how delicious that chicken salad would be because in all of the excitement I realize I have forgotten to eat today. As the last red slimy stream slinks down the drain I am hit with my first stab of terror. As I dry my hair slowly, nervously, Maureen joins me in the mirror again. Now I'm really scared.
My hair dries, revealing its new hue and my excitement disappears. I don't look like a Russian spy. I look like a human carrot. My hair is not ``auburn with warm red highlights;'' my hair is not ``Rus-sette.''
My hair is an eerie, glowing jack-o-lantern, Bozo-the-clown orange. All I need is a red rubber nose and I'm all set to entertain at a children's party.
Maureen suddenly explodes into laughter behind me. After a while I laugh, too. I know I deserved this. (The box warned the color was not for blonde hair, afterall. But rational thinking, logic - these things don't reach me when I get these ideas in my head).
Eventually the dye washed out. This time I was lucky.
On my back there is a large rose tattoo. Rose tattoos do not wash out and I will forever have a large red flower emblazoned on my body like the scarlet letter. I must cover it in shame every time I go to church or whenever my grandmother visits.
It's much more fun, I've learned, to want to dye my hair or get a tattoo than to actually go through with it. Afterwards, there is usually a letdown.
After my orange hair faded, poetry boy sidled up to me in the dining hall and asked for my number.
His name was not Stephan or Jean Michael, it turned out to be Larry and he writes really bad poetry. As I dodge Larry's phone calls, it occurs to me that I might look pretty good with my nose pierced ...
by CNB