Hair (and there) number three

I didn't mean to have a third entry in this hair (and there) series - apart from anything else the hair (and there) bit no longer seems quite as cutting-edge hilarious as it did two weeks ago. However circumstances conspired against it being put to rest just yet, at least not before I add the colourful events of last Thursday. And first let me give some background by mentioning the fact I have never, in my entire life, had less spare time than I do at the moment. Some reasons for this:

• in the process of moving mother - after 53 yrs in the same house - to a retirement villa (d-day is next Thursday).
• started teaching new (Holmesglen) TAFE c/writing course rather unexpectedly (requiring complete set of lesson plans).
• just discovered I made a slight error with my current (Chisholm) teaching workload and there are two extra weeks worth of lessons I hadn't accounted for.
• daughter in flux (note the clever play on words here?)
• son's birthday has just come and gone, including a three week visit by him.
• new ms due in two months (necessitating approx. 150,000 wds of which I have written approx. 10. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how many are in the title).
• plus do you realise Christmas is just around the corner? How did that happen?

With this background, and in an effort to balance out the increasingly stressed expression on my face (I think I'm beginning to look like the father in Mary Poppins - the one who resembles a Shar Pei), I managed to extract a modicum of spare time within which to visit the hairdresser (a new one, as my old one has recently shifted her focus to the propagation of the species). I was fondly imagining a stress-free couple of hours, complete with head massage, after which I would emerge looking as good as I get. Humph. I suppose I should have been warned by my new hairdresser's conversational skills. For example:

• HD: So... got a busy day today?
• Me (rattling my magazine meaningfully): Yes.
• HD: Oh, um. Cool. [brief silence]. Whatcha up to then?
• ME: Just catching up on some work.
• HD: Oh, yeah right. That housework never ends, eh?

Idiot. But worse was to come. When it soon (two hours later anyway) became apparent that my simple request for something 'honey-brown with a scattering of subtle blonde foils' had been interpreted as 'melange of orange with plentiful streaks of urine-yellow'. Yes, I can see how the two could be mixed up. For starters they both have nine words.

However I suspect strongly that even the hairdresser knew that the resultant concoction was not a good look as she ushered me straight back over to the basin to add 'just a little toner' (plus her voice went up several octaves). I don't think there was enough toner in the entire building (or suburb, or state) to fix this up. The true nature of the result did not dawn on me until she started drying it off, and then I gradually went into a sort of catatonic shock. Which is probably why I paid $150 without demur, and just nodded graciously when she urged me to return if I wasn't happy with looking like a candy shop just vomited on my head. I exited into the sunlight, which gave my hair an almost iridescent glow. My own aura. And I drove straight down to the supermarket where I picked up a packet of $14.00 (on special) hairdye. And Murphy's Law of course dictated that I run into several people I hadn't seen for a while. Including, incidentally, one actually called Murphy. True.

And I think I now have post-traumatic stress disorder. Which is not helped by the fact the hairdye was only partially successful and the orange refuses to truly die (get it?), resulting in an odd gingery-pink glow under lights. Plus, to add insult to injury, I suspect I have less hair on top than I ever had before. I'm sure my scalp was never quite this visible, or shiny. The only silver lining to all this is that I don't have enough spare time to look in a mirror anyway. Hopefully by Christmas it'll either have faded, or fallen out. And I can always ask Santa for a wig. I'm thinking honey-brown, with a few blonde foils.