My Bad Hair Day

I am so glad this Christmas Eve is better than the last one, actually it was very good.

My brother came over Christmas Eve and we reminisced about our childhood, and I was reminded about the one day that could be considered worse than my bad hair day. This was a wonderful visit, which I enjoyed very much.

My Bad Hair Day actually started a year ago yesterday and it was one 'bad hair' day to remember.

My bad hair day actually started on Tuesday, peaked the following and leveled out Christmas day.

For over a week I had planned to touch-up my gray roots so my hair would look nice for Christmas. I had purchased the root touch-up a couple of weeks ago. I was prepared to tackle the gray roots on Monday which ended up being late Saturday evening (Christmas Eve).

Just before Thanksgiving, my old washing machine was leaking really badly, since that time, my husband and I had been talking about buying a new one. And when we saw a washer at the local home improvement store, which was on sale for half price. Although I do not care for all the bells and whistles it has, we, decided to buy it anyway and it was scheduled to be delivered December 20th, the Tuesday before Christmas.

The Monday before Christmas, the home improvement store's representative where Honey Bunny (my husband) and I had purchased the new washing machine called to say it would be delivered the following day, Tuesday between 3pm and 6pm, as scheduled.

Preparing for a new washing machine is not as easy as it seems.--and involves many trips to the men's toy stores, (i.e. tool, home improvement, and hardware.)

Honey Bunny decided that we should take the old leaky washer out so I could scrub the tiles underneath in preparation for the new washer. When the washer hoses were disconnected, we discovered that both the hot and cold water valves were leaking and needed replacing.

Right away, I knew my root touch-up was not going to happen today, as we headed out to the home improvement store.

We purchased the valves, and hubby installed them, while I mopped up the water on the laundry room floor. I turned on the water in the laundry tub, to rinse out the mop, and only got a trickle, when Hubby saw the water from the faucet was not running like it should, for some unknown reason. Honey Bunny thought it was a clog in the water lines, so he proceeded to take everything apart, to make sure this was the problem, and found out it was not a clog in the water lines, but a problem in the faucet itself. Instead of repairing it he decided to replace both the faucet and the laundry tub.

Tuesday morning, I woke up with a headache, nothing major. I took an extra strong aspirin tablet and went on about my usual daily activities. Honey Bunny was still asleep when I started making our breakfast, and by the time breakfast was ready, he was awake and up. We ate our breakfast and then we were off and running.

Hubby and I headed out to the two local home improvement stores (men's toy store as I call them), to purchase the laundry tub and faucet, and to install them before the new washing machine was delivered.

If you have ever been to the men's toy store, you know how long it can take, and today it seemed to take longer than normal, or maybe because my headache was getting worse and my hip was hurting from too much walking, or maybe because I was anxious to have my new washing machine delivered, or maybe a combination of all the above.

We purchased a new tub, and a new faucet, we also purchased chrome compression water lines, instead of the flexible Kind.

After we came home and ate the light lunch I prepared. Honey Bunny started to take the old faucet and laundry tub apart and assemble the new ones. And I sat down at the computer to read my e-mail, and that is when the full blown migraine hit.

I turned off the computer and went to bed. At this point I did not care if my new machine was delivered today or not, and if it was hubby would just have to handle everything. No root touch-up today either.

Needless to say, the new laundry tub, faucet, and water lines were not installed. Fortunately, the laundry room floor was clean and ready for my new washing machine.

It seemed like I just dozed off, when shortly after 4pm the delivery man called to say he was on the way with my new washing machine. The ringing of the phone nearly sent me into orbit and the nausea hit full force, I just made it to the bath room in time. I am sure anyone who has ever had a migraine can relate.

With the room still spinning I made my way back to bed and had just dozed off again when the drive way alarm went off, (an alarm that tells us someone or something is on the driveway.)Honey Bunny realized what the sound was doing to me and, turned off the alarm and closed the bedroom door.

I know that hubby was trying to keep the sound down as much as possible, and although I could still hear faint sounds of the washing machine being delivered, and the beeping of the security alarm when the door is opened, I dozed off again. Then I heard the beeping of the door being opened and closed, over and over again. I thought how many times does he have to go in and out? Just deliver the washing machine! Hook it up, test it and it is done. Then it got quiet and I dozed off again.

Suddenly the beep of the door started again and I heard Honey Bunny saying to the delivery man, "If you have a million of one item and only one of them is a lemon, I will always end-up with the lemon."

I thought (like the microwave, but that is another story) so why can't I pick the winning lottery numbers?

I found out later that the first washing machine that was delivered would not even turn on. That is the reason for going in and out, so much, was to test the circuit breaker and electric plug.

The washing machine was taken back to the store and another one delivered.

I got out of bed about 9:30pm and hubby looked at me and said, I am taking you to the E.R.

We arrived at the E.R. at 9:40pm and they gave me medication that knocked me out. After 3 hours and making sure my blood pressure was normal, they sent me home. I slept till almost noon on Wednesday. Poor hubby had to fend for himself. He did not work on the tub and we just relaxed the rest of Wednesday and all day Thursday. I did not feel like doing the root touch-up either day.

Friday, Honey Bunny worked outside, fixing a flat tire on the tractor and mulching leaves. He then connected the chrome water lines only to find they were too long, and he cut them and had to bend them to fit, and then found that he could not connect them to the faucet because he did not have the room to get a tool in between the tub and the back of the cabinet to tighten them, and when he made the connection to the faucet first and dropped the tub into the cabinet, the water lines did not line up. By this time he was too tired to go to the store for the flexible water lines. And again, I did not feel like doing my hair touch-up.

Saturday, my last chance to do my root touch-up, and it has to be today, or wait till after Christmas. Hubby says "you can do that after we go get the flexible water lines, and I also want to pick-up the vacuum we saw advertised at the other store, and as hubby said, "I want to be home in time to watch the football game at noon, and you can do your hair then."

We made a bee-line to the store that had advertised the shop type-vacuum cleaner, but as usual they were all gone, sold out. The vacuum cleaner forgotten for the moment, we went back to the home improvement store. We bought the flexible water lines to connect the laundry tub faucet then did some other shopping. By the time we got home, we had missed part of the football game, and the Jets were playing.

During commercials Honey Bunny decided to connect the water lines and found out he had gotten 3/8 not 1/2 inch size. Hubby said "I don't want to miss the rest of the game". Since I had not started my root touch-up, I told him that I would return the water lines and get the correct ones. He asked me to check and see if they have the same vacuum advertised at the other store, and find out the cost.

After getting the correct water lines, I found an associate to help me find the advertised vacuum that was on sale at the other store. They only had one left, and the home improvement store manager matched the other store's sale price, and I purchased it for him. I told Honey Bunny that a woman took the last one, but did not tell him that woman was me. His look of disappointment was such that I almost told him; I bought it, but could not pass-up the chance to surprise him, which is next to impossible to do.

Finally, I could use the root touch up, and have no more gray. I mixed the ingredients and put the root touch-up on per the instructions and waited for the appropriate time then rinsed it out, I then rolled my hair and hubby said, "Your hair looks darker at the roots." Maybe it will be lighter when it dries, I told him anyway, and this is supposed to only last 3 weeks, and is supposed to cover the gray and blend in with any shade of blond, and I bought the palest blond.

The next morning I took the rollers out of my hair and just about freaked out. Yeah the gray was gone only now instead of gray hair, now my roots were a dark brown, and to make things worse, hubby said "Boy do you look tired." That was just what I needed to hear.

I was so upset. It is Christmas day and I am going to Church, I don't have time to wash my hair to see if the roots will lighten, and it might not help much, if at all. On top of that I don't even have a wig to wear, not even a cap to cover my hair.

I reluctantly got dressed, black top with red skirt and black panty hose. Now all I need is red shoes. I looked in the closet, pull out a pair of red shoes and put them on, oh no! My big toes turn up on the end and my toe nails would rub against the top of the shoes and rub holes in the toes of my panty hose. I settled for black high heel pumps instead, which were not as tight.

I was resigned to the fact that I could not do anything about my darkened roots, and had to accept that it is a bad hair day. As I pull on my coat and the button came off in my hand. I sewed the button back on and put my coat back on.

Oh, no....Honey Bunny is not even ready, as usual. We had decided last night that we would be on time, for once.

Hubby is the kind of person would rather be an hour late, than 10 minutes early and I on the other hand would rather be an hour early than 10 minutes late, so all year we compromised and "EVERY" Sunday we were usually 5 to 10 minutes late. Today I wanted to be on time, not just because it is Christmas day, and church is so crowded, and we have to park in the parking lot of the business across the street (an extremely busy street) from the church.

We made it to church with about 2 minutes to spare. When we walk into the Narthex, our friend Sue is holding the door open to the Worship space. It is like a custom for her to say "How pretty you look", but she did not say that today and I was looking at her eyes to see if she was looking at my bad hair, as I hugged her and wished her a Merry Christmas.

As we entered the Worship space, I walked toward our usual seats, on the front row. I glance around at Hubby and realize he is looking for seats near the back. I am thinking of the old cliché: 'Everybody wants to be in the back of the church, the front of the bus and the middle of the road.' For the moment I was not thinking of my bad hair. I continued down the aisle to the front row. Hubby reluctantly followed me, although he does not mind the front row as long as it is the one hidden behind the piano, but that row was full, so we sat in the front row of the next section, facing the Priest.

Our church is in the round with 8 sections cut like pie slices and between each slice is an aisle, with a large circle in the middle for the Altar and where the Priest and Pastoral Assistant sit which is in a front row of one section. We are on time and the Priest and Pastoral Assistant are not seated yet.

Oh, oh. I look around and all the front rows of each section are empty. I asked are the front rows reserved? Hubby whispered. I don't think so, I whispered back, as I looked at each section it seemed that everybody was looking back at me. Are they looking at my bad hair? I wanted to run to the back of the church, too late to change seats now.

We started to sing a song that I thought I knew the words to, so I did not pick-up the hymnal. I was singing and realized the whole row behind us was not singing. There was not one person singing to drown-me-out when I sang the wrong words. Now, if everyone was not looking at my bad hair they would be looking to see who sang the wrong words and then they would see my bad hair.

Relieved when the song ended, I tried to concentrate on Fr. Staiowski's homily. As he spoke, I suddenly felt like something was ripping open on my upper thigh and creeping down to my knee. My skirt did not cover my knees completely, so I crossed my legs and cupped my hand over my left knee to cover the run in my panty hose.

With the homily over all was quiet in the church, as the Pastoral Assistant, with his eyes down cast while breaking the bread for communion, I think of another cliché: 'Silence is Golden.' Almost on queue with my thoughts, the silence is brokenby the sound of a cell phone. The assistant looks up and I thought he was looking at me. My mind is screaming "It is not my cell phone. Mine plays "I drove all night".

On our way home or somewhere else I called to see if Zane, (our grandson) wanted to go out with us. I called the land-line phone I wanted to say something profound which will touch his heart and would inspire him to want to share this day of Jesus birth with us. He did not answer; I call his cell phone still no answer. We go home and I made our breakfast. We are supposed to go to Walter's (our son's) house for Christmas dinner.

I wanted to wash out the bad hair, but did not have enough time. Oh well! We went to have Christmas dinner and exchange gifts with Walter, his girlfriend, her parents, sibling and her 2 daughters.

I gave my hubby a remote control helicopter which I purchased before the vacuum (what else would you give someone who has everything?) and then I gave him the vacuum. It is the first time ever, in our 28 years of marriage that I surprised him, which made me glad that I did not tell him that I was the woman who bought the last one.

Christmas day turned out to be a very pleasant evening. All-in-all, it has been a Merry Christmas, in spite of my bad hair day.