Highlights and Haircuts

My son started back to school yesterday. He says that he's going to do much better this year. He's going to set goals. He's going to do what he needs to do when he needs to do it. He's going to be diligent and hardworking. He's not going to be discouraged by minor setbacks. I told him that I was proud of him and would support him in his efforts. I just wish he were so committed about his grades. Confused? Then you have little idea what school is all about for the average teenager. You see, my son's objective is to get a girlfriend this year, maybe even a few.

He has his strategies all laid out: the clothes, the looks, the lines. He is ready...except, I mentioned yesterday, for the fairly popular blonde-tipped hair style that a lot of guys are wearing. You've seen the style, I'm sure. It's the one that looks like the guy just saw a ghost, and then dipped the top of his head in a toilet bowl full of bleach water. I suggested that, perhaps, he go for "the look".

My son, being a terrible procrastinator, waited until late yesterday night to say, "Dad, I want to get my hair highlighted for school tomorrow." I laughed, because there was no way. "There is one way," my son enlightened me. Being also the adventurous type (and a little crazy), he said, "You could highlight my hair." Now normally I would welcome the opportunity to dunk my son's head in a toilet, but my concern for his social standing overcame my need for parental revenge. So instead we went to Wally World (i.e. Wal-Mart) to get a hair highlighting product.

Can I just say I have no idea what the hell I'm doing in the hair color section of Wally World? Just to get to that section, you have to go deep into the "no man's land" part of the store. Any man who is comfortable standing there among face creams, makeups, scented lotions, and unmentionable hygiene products needs to have his masculinity examined. Granted, it's not as bad as roaming through the women's underwear department, but it's close. For those men who have never visited the hair color section (and are damn proud of it), you would be amazed at the size of the place. It takes up a whole aisle! Do you know how many shades of "blonde" there are? No, you don't. Trust me.

My son and I tried several approaches to selecting the correct hair product. We looked for boxes with pictures of guys on the front. No luck there; except for this one with a guy who was supposed to be cool, but looked more like kind that you don't stand too close to. (wink wink nudge nudge) We looked for boxes that said "highlight". Apparently, all hair dyes, even the dark brunette ones, are intended to "put highlights in your hair" or "highlight your natural color" or do something highlight-ish. Finally, we settled on a tried-and-true method when faced with this type of dilemma: choose the most expensive.

Once back home, my son happily submitted to letting me grab little strands of his hair and pull them quite forcefully through tiny holes in a goofy little cap he wore. A suggestion for fathers who want to beat their teenage sons: Just convince them to let you highlight their hair. Loads of fun, this is, and quite a frustration reliever.  At the end of an hour, I was in a great mood. My son, meanwhile, was wincing in pain with little tuffs of his hair stinking up through the plastic cap and looking like one of those light-fiber lamps.

On went the hair color goop. Caution: when you mix this stuff up, do not breath. The instructions warn you repeatedly about wearing the plastic gloves (sized for a 12-year-old girl, by the way). Nowhere does it warn not to breath in the powder than you are supposed to mix into a bottle, most of which flies into the air headed straight for your lungs. I don't think I've ever sucked in anything that my body tried to reject more than this hair dye stuff. So as the instructions stated, I thoroughly soaked my son's head with it. When I was finished, we still had 2/3 of a bottle left. Geez, no wonder this stuff is so expensive. I tossed the bottle, but still had the goop all over my hands (glove-covered, of course). And here is where I made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Laughing at my son about all the trouble and pain he had gone through, (hee hee...oh, sorry) I said, "See, all you have to do is run the stuff through the ends with your fingers like this." And I proceeded to wipe my gloves off in my own hair. Now before you say I'm an idiot, I had quickly thought this action through. I reasoned that there was very little of the goop actually left on my hands. And my hair, fairly dark, would probably only redden a bit (which might be quite attractive). And finally, I wouldn't really leave it on that long, so it won't do much anyhow.

Okay, now you can call me an idiot.

To pass the time while the dye "worked", my son and I sat down to watch a movie. But I told him quite firmly, "Now it's your job to make sure that you don't leave that stuff on too long. You could ruin your hair and go bald." On with the movie. Another important suggestion: Never ever rely on a teenager to be on time about anything.  Somewhere during the movie, I look over at my son. He has white califlower-like sprouts popping out of the top his head. I rush into the bathroom. (Forget my son, what the hell have I done to my hair.)

We both washed out our hair. Amazingly enough, my son's hair looked pretty cool. More like some wierd porcupine-head than hair with highlighted tips, but cool nonetheless. Meanwhile, I looked seriously goofy. When you run bleach-covered fingers through your hair, do you know what you get? White finger prints on your head. Enough said. You can call me an idiot again if you'd like.

This morning, my hair is cut very short. I had to razor-cut the sides in an attempt to make the big blond spot on the side of my head look like I just "sat too close to the barber". To make matter worse, my hair is so fine that, when short, it puffs straight out like (to quote my wife) "some kind of giant Q-Tip." So I had to put hair mousse on it. It still won't stay down. It now sticks up in spikes.

So if you see me in the next few days, don't be surprised that a 43-year-old man is sporting a spiked hair style with blonde tips. I'm hip. I'm cool. You can stop calling me an idiot now.