Bad Hair Day

Originally written on March 20, 2003

The end of a perfect day. This is my story. Read at your own risk. You may feel sympathetic or angry at the end…not sure which!

My day starts out optimistically. I jump out of bed at the first wail of the radio. That hasn’t happened in awhile, so I’m pretty impressed with this going to bed early thing. I have my shower and notice how much time I have to spare as I’m drying off. That lead time lengthens when I remember that I am buying my lunch out today so there will be no time needed to prepare it.

The bed looks so inviting as I continue to towel dry my hair. Another glance at the clock convinces me that I do have time for one more snuggle in the warm blankets while I listen to the news. Ahhhhhh, I love my bed.

The even, steady breathing, in and out, in and out, is what brought my little dream time to an abrupt end. Or was it snoring (although I don’t admit to doing that). Regardless, my eyes flew open and I realized that a couple of minutes listening to the news had quickly turned into 45 minutes of sleep.

I jumped out of bed again and looked at myself in the mirror. Hmmm, those bed wrinkles should disappear before I get to work. But my hair. What in the hell…my naturally wavy hair that holds a really good curl had formed a really huge wave right on top of my forehead. One half of my bangs was heading up and the other half was heading straight down. No problem, my hair drying expertise would take care of that. After drying, and brushing, and pulling and brushing and drying some more, my hair was one huge, frizzy, fuzzy mop.

Next the hair spray and gel. First the gel to slick it all down, then the spray to mold and hold where you want it. Usually works. Today was different. In the end, when I looked at the clock and realized my body should be in a seat behind my wheel driving to work rather than still in my bedroom in front of my mirror, I surrendered. I stormed out of the apartment with half my bangs doing a straight angle thing to the left and the other half nicely swooping to the right. I was sure I would have to fight people from trying to straighten my bangs as someone would try to straighten a picture that they see askew.

I felt like pigpen running down the hall with a cloud of dust swirling in my wake. Yes I ran to the elevator so that I could shuffle and shift from one foot to the other and stare at the lit button, willing the damn elevator to arrive on my floor, this year. I couldn’t look at my watch. That would only aggravate my already sensitive mood.

I had to look though, as I turned the key in the ignition of my car and the clock turned on. Damn…how was I going to turn this half hour trip into a fifteen minute one in morning rush hour? Maybe I’ll be lucky and the traffic will be light. That was as stupid as thinking I bet when I get to work I’ll find out that we won the lottery and I’m rich now.

Traffic was light on my little back street, but big friggin deal, it’s two blocks long and the light turned red just as I got to the corner. Next one will be green I thought. Nope. Red. I’ll make it through the next one. Nope, caught again. My exhilaration started to rise when I saw a light turning green in the distance, now surely I’ll get that one I thought as I sped up. Nope, some fucking asshole made sure of that by changing lanes and poking so slow I wanted to drive all over him.

I quickly got into the other lane to get away from him. Now I was driving behind Brakey. You know those drivers that hit the brake every other second. Gives you a bit of a shock when you are apparently too close on the slippery, wet roads. What is it with these fucking Sunday drivers on a Thursday morning? I stare at them intently as I whiz by them, after weaving in and out between the two lanes, trying to see if there was a commonality that would explain this nightmare. Just to make my point, I rev my Toyota to the max as I shift from first to second, third to fourth, wheels squealing ever so slightly in the damp, gray morn. They don’t care. Not even a look my way as they continue to saunter along, singing a cowboy song….’just a strollin, under the big gray clouds, howdy doody, I’m an asshole today…just taking my time, going soooooo slow, I love to piss Shelly off cause it makes my day, I’m a BIG asshole, with NOWHERE to go, I’m a slooooooow driving, idiot in Canadaland… ‘

Well, maybe they weren’t singing that song but they should have been. It didn’t matter what I told myself, I could not stop the adrenaline rush and the urge to drive over everything that got in my way. It’s because I haven’t had my coffee yet. Yeah that’s it. Soon I’ll be at Tim Horton’s and the sun will shine, the birds will sing and Shelly will smile once again.

After sitting at that red light, I finally did arrive at Tim Horton’s. Ready to kill, I walked into the coffee shop, watching the expressions on everyone’s face that looked my way, just to make sure that they weren’t looking at my hair and laughing to themselves. That would be the final straw. They were lucky…I didn’t see any smirks. Hmmm, I don’t think anyone smiled at me either, hey that’s not the way it normally is.

After grabbing my coffee, I managed to make it to work without incident. As I was walking to my cell (cubicle) I stole a look at the clock and I was impressed! Only 5 minutes late!

I pretty much stuck to myself for the balance of the morning. Not trusting my foul mood to interact with anyone, but by lunch time I was laughing and enjoying myself as per usual and that was because I made an appointment to get my hair done tomorrow night! Yippppeeee!!!