The Postscript: My signature look

We’re at the stage where everyone is complaining about their hair.

I am not complaining. As I have frequently bragged, my husband, Peter, cuts my hair and this has continued while the beauty parlors are closed and everyone is growing increasingly cranky.

We were talking to our friends, Mary and Wolfgang, about this and Mary was expressing a bit of envy that I had gotten a haircut the previous day. I let her think that getting a haircut from Peter was like getting a haircut in a salon although, other than the use of scissors, there is very little similarity.

Professional stylists will ask you, “What do you have in mind?” and stand there and pretend to listen before they start cutting hair off. Peter dispenses with this formality. “Snip! Snip! Snip!” Peter is done in no time flat and my hair looks as good as it’s going to get.

I also used to go to a hair salon to get my hair “highlighted.” This was code for “bleached blond,” but I always said, “highlighted” because that’s what the stylist would say. Eventually, I realized I was spending a lot of money on a pitiful crop of hair. So, I took a deep breath and tried lightening it myself. The results were exactly the same so I kept doing it. Then, one day about a year ago, the package design changed and I bought the wrong color.

I realized immediately that I had made a dreadful error and had bleached my hair an alarming platinum blond.

“OH NO! What have I done?!”

I went to bed wondering if I would try to cover up this disaster or just hide in my house long enough for it to grow out.

But a funny thing happened the next morning. I got out of bed, forgetting my fiasco of the previous evening, and saw myself in the morning sunshine. My hair was, as always, standing straight on end. But now it was wackadoodle platinum blond. I liked it.

“Wow. Your hair is very blond,” my mother said when she saw it.

“I know,” I told her. “It was a mistake.”

“I like it,” she told me.

That settled it. Wackadoodle blond was my new signature look.

So now my hair is newly cut and blond and I am feeling better than Mary and Wolfgang.

“I used to cut Wolfgang’s hair,” Mary confessed, “but it’s too hard now that he’s going bald!”

“He just needs to pay you more,” I told Mary.

“Why is that?” Wolfgang demanded. “Why do I have to pay more for less hair?”

“It’s just like camping gear and lingerie,” I told Wolfgang. “The less there is, the more you pay.”

Wolfgang and Mary thought that was funny and probably also thought I knew something about lingerie — I didn’t set them straight.

But the truth is, my underwear are an embarrassment and my nightgown has holes in it. My mother gave the nightgown to me years ago for Christmas and it is my favorite. It has reindeer on it and it is quite literally falling to pieces.

I decided, with my fancy new haircut, I should bite the bullet and get a new nightgown and went looking online. The only one I found that was anything like it was exactly like it — it had reindeer prancing across the front. I bought it.

So, this summer, I’ll be the wackadoodle blonde wearing a festive reindeer nightie.

One of the many nice things about getting older is that I’ve had time to learn what really suits me.

Till next time,

Carrie

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Carrie Classon is married to Havre native Peter Heimdahl. Her memoir, “Blue Yarn: A Memoir About Loss, Letting Go, & What Happens Next,” was published in 2019 Learn more at https://www.carrieclasson.com .