I have a problem with thinking everyone is on the same page as me.

They very often aren’t, especially if I don’t know them that well, but I still give them the benefit of the doubt and leave them in the dark as to my real intentions.

My hair, as you know, is now white, a glorious, glossy head but also a tantalizingly tempting canvas just begging to be streaked…ever so slightly!

I found a picture of a model with palest blue highlights running through her hair.  To me it looked ethereal and lovely.

I sent it to my hairdresser and she came up with a plan.  And we all know about those best laid plans!

Erring on the side of caution she left the foil on for less than the minimum amount of recommended time.  Mine is the breed of hair that curls when shown a roller so I was in agreement with her decision.

However, the resultant colour was teal.

The turquoisie strands peeked out cheekily from beneath the top layer of my hair.

Nothing like the photograph I had resting on my lap.

Several weeks later I returned for a few more fine highlights.

For some reason I expected my hairdresser to have gone through the same thought processes I had been cataloguing during the interval.  I did not make myself absolutely clear as to my expectations.  I believed her to be in tune with what I wanted…after all, I was and we both had the picture!

Hubs calls me way too casual with my hair.

I allowed myself to walk out of her house with bright blue hair, the exact colour as the tube from whence the pigment came.  Furthermore I was the one apologising to my hairdresser.  I took full responsibility for the glaring hair malfunction.  She was only providing the service I had asked for.

The streaks were bold, they shone, they proclaimed themselves loudly from the top of my head, buddied up to Blue Man Group.  Brightly they glowed, there was no disguising them.

I drove slowly home to the waiting arms of my family…an adult Smurf.

I was mortified.

I called my hairdresser from home the moment I saw hub’s look of disbelief.

She had never done “blue” before and was as much in the dark as I was as to how to wrassle it to the ground and tame it!

Clarifying shampoo was the only tip she could offer and the platitude,

“I’m sorry it’s not working for you.”

For the first time in our 128 years of married bliss I may have upset the applecart.

After two and a half days I compared shades with the first photo I’d taken.  The colour had faded to a teal, the original colour of yore, except this time it wasn’t craftily tucked away under the more prominent white.

I wanted to hide-out.  Instead…

I had to spend time on a film set instead in all my pastel glory.  There was no blending into the background for me!

My children visited one by one to get a first hand, up close and personal view of the new  me!

I earned the name, “Mama Smurf”.

Hubs had to suffer my company in Florida for a week where we had planned some R & R before my foray into the punk world and I wished I’d had a hat each time someone passed a personal comment.

“They are talking to me like I’m an old lady!”  I complained after one grocery checkout girl looked me in the eye and said,

“I think you look absolutely wonderful,” I almost expected her to pat my hand condescendingly.

Hubs said nothing.  I am an old lady!

Ridiculously, and this may fall into the same category of forgetting the pangs of childbirth  once you’ve fallen for your child, I am growing used to it!

Let’s face it, and I do,  how long can I keep on flinching every time I catch sight of myself in a mirror?

Me and my hair blended perfectly with the Key West waters.

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