The Power of the Dark Side

I inherited three major qualities from my grandmother: 1) the ability to laugh at my mistakes; 2) a passionate love for a great bargain; and 3) prematurely gray hair. All these gifts combined last weekend in a way that made me richly aware of my heritage, and also made me look and feel like a complete idiot.

It all started at the beauty supply store, where I had stopped to pick up some hair color (to cover Grandma's Gift Number 3). I knew just what to get, and I was headed to that section of the store when I was sucked in by what is, for me, one of the most powerful magnetic forces on earth: a clearance table (Grandma's Gift 2). I was interested to find that the table had hair coloring on it, and naturally I was tempted, but I wasn't convinced – this was not my regular brand; in fact, this was a brand I had never heard of, and it was only about a dollar less than my usual stuff. I stood there, with the bottle in my hand, considering, when I saw a sign on the table I had overlooked. It read "All Clearance Items are Buy One Get One Free."

Something deep within my soul quivered with joy. I filled a bag with the cheap stuff and fairly ran to the checkout.

On the way home, I congratulated myself on my brilliant bargain. The hair color had been marked down to $2.99, and each bottle was big enough to color my hair twice. That meant that I had enough hair color to last me over a year, and at a cost of just seventy-five cents an application. In what can best be described as a sick tightwad fantasy, I pictured myself walking down the road, swinging my stunning brown locks, my pockets jingling with all the cash I had saved by making this impressive purchase, spending my windfall savings on some luxury item, like maybe a corn dog or two.

Back at home, product in hand, I was less confident. The instructions for my new hair color seemed to have been written by someone who had limited exposure to the English language. But I've been covering my gray for years, and I was able to come up with a rough translation. Bravely, I plunged in. I mixed up the coloring, spread it on, spent a pleasant and relaxing 45 minutes smelling like embalming fluid, then washed my hair. It was at this point that I discovered that while some of my hair looked about right, large sections of my hair were several shades darker than I was used to. Also, large sections of my forehead were several shades darker than I was used to.

Remember, I am a person who can laugh at my own mistakes (Grandma's Gift Number 1).  Also, as was clearly demonstrated that day, I am a person who has a family who can laugh at my mistakes. When the hilarity eventually subsided (ha ha), I headed back to the store, this time to buy my usual brand of hair color.

Feeling more secure now — after all, I was on familiar territory again — I re-colored my hair.

Now, perhaps you are thinking, "But if her hair was too dark, how could adding more color to it make it lighter? Wouldn't that make the problem even worse?" If you are indeed thinking this, I would like you to ask yourself another question, which is, "Where was I at the time, when I could have brought up this obvious issue to a person in need, a person who clearly had inhaled too many hair color fumes?"

Yes, I stepped out of the shower later that day looking far worse than before. My hair was so dark in some spots that it seemed to be functioning as a black hole in space would, sucking all the light out of every room I entered. There was no more pretending that I wasn't in serious trouble. Even my grandmother (whose usual perky advice would have been something like, "Just put on your prettiest dress and a bright smile and no one will notice anything's wrong!") would have started looking around for a wooden stake to drive into my heart if I got too close.

Keep in mind that at this point, I had already messed up twice in one weekend by believing that I could be my own stylist, and as a result, I looked like I should be filling out an application to compete in an international Elvira look-alike contest. So naturally, I did what any sensible person in my situation would do: I grabbed the nearest pair of scissors and started hacking off large chunks of my hair.

Okay, it's possible that at this point I had lost the capacity to think clearly.

I'll spare you the next part of the story, as it is rather tedious and also involves profanity. But let me say this: Some people may tell you that there is nothing so expensive as a cheap paintbrush. They are wrong. Compared to the financial hazards of purchasing discount hair color, buying a cheap paintbrush is like dropping your gum in the dirt. I spent far more money trying to fix the problem than I had ever hoped to save. Now, my locks are still not stunning brown, and my pockets are certainly not jingling. At this point, when people ask me, "Ooh, what happened to your hair?" I cannot even distract them by offering them a corn dog.

If anyone else out there loves a bargain like I do, I have some extra hair color for sale. Hey, I'll let it go cheap.