hair emergency

I blame vanity and the coupon--I only buy funky hair stuff when there's a coupon.

I bought some sort of Shiney Hair by Clariol. It's not a dye so I figured it wasn't a big deal with the poisons. Whoops, it must be chock full of toxic chemicals because they insist you wear gloves and do the junior chemistry thing with two bottles (with the warning: don't store the two mixed substances in a closed container or it'll explode, dammit, on the instructions)

Even before you mix the stuff, you don gloves. It's that scary. The big cheery sheet warns you not to let the gunk touch ANYTHING.

I have long hair, down to my butt. I didn't want my gunk-encased hair touching anything like skin or clothing (or the dog who wanted to help me with this project. She wants to help me with every project) so I got a Stop and Shop plastic bag to cover my head during the ten minutes of waiting for the Shiny effect. Very clever, eh? I planned to use the bag later on to dispose of all the toxic Shiny Hair materials. Clever and frugal.

I was puttering around the bathroom, cleaning up the sink when I noticed red and brown streaks on my gloved hands. Whatever is in the Shiny Hair Gunk was dissolving the lettering on the plastic bag--and, apparently, the brown coloring of the plastic bag.

I wanted to throw the brown bag away but there's no protective plastic bag in the white bathroom trash container (recall my frugal use of the hair bag as trash bag?) and I didn't want to smear the fancy white trash can with the dissolving ink.

The dog and I tore down the stairs. As I rooted around under the kitchen sink for a better trash receptacle, the Stop and Shop bag fell off my head and landed on the dog. Her face. I stuffed the dissolving bag into the trash. I grabbed the kitchen sink sprayer and started blasting the dog's face. At least she didn't run away--she loves biting at water. It's her favorite game. While I sprayed, I inched along to the counter to pick up two dish-towels--one for the dog and one for my horrible-goop-covered hair.

I tried to convince the dog to jump up on the chair so I didn't have to get the floor all wet. I patted the chair and call her, all the while trying to keep my long nasty hair from touching anything. She knew I was playing some sort of trick--dogs are not allowed on kitchen furniture.

I gave up and just let the floor get wet because I didn't dare touch her or anything else. I was still wearing the brown and red smeared gloves and my hair was still toxic. Heck, the kitchen floor could use a good wash. It's always sort of grubby and now there was toxic Shine chemicals dripping onto it.

Eventually the dog seemed fine, the floor was a swamp and I leaned over the sink to use the sprayer on my head. No more Shiny Hair Toxic Waste and only a few dishes in the sink got covered with the crap. I think there might be some banana bread crumbs in my hair, but I don't give a damn.

So now I'm hiding recovering in my room, my head swathed in a towel. The dog is fine. I have no idea what my hair will look like (red and brown streaks?) but kitchen floor is way shiny.