Hair-um Scare-um

 Quick—see if you can name this common object:

          If you said steel wool, you are right. If you said Joni’s hair after a total disaster at the salon, you would also be right. (And now when I hear about someone calling S.O.S. I'm going to think they're in a panic because their hair now looks like an S.O.S. pad!)

          I went in to get some lowlights put into my light blonde hair, and when the colorist washed it out, my entire head of hair was now charcoal gray with black streaks. She said, "It will lighten a bit each time you wash it." Honey, I'd have to wash it every day for a century, and it still wouldn't make it blonde.

          St. Bob said he could turn me upside down and use me to scrub pots.  I glared at him. “Just try.” 

          My curls actually did resemble this wire scrubber:

          Or the sludge you see on the roadside during winter:

          Or the beard of physicist James Clerk Maxwell:

          Crossed with Rasputin:

           And the Bride of Frankenstein:

           Forget COVID. I'll have to quarantine just to hide my hair!

           This all happened after cancer and chemo. When you lose all your hair, it grows in a different texture and color. In my case, it grew in even curlier and dark brown!  Yet my eyebrows stayed blonde.

          Did I find someone to correct the situation? Yes. In steps. Hallelujah. And, now that I’m on my way back to being myself, I have to admit that streaky charcoal hair is better than no hair at all.

          Next time you’re unhappy with your hair, just stay inside and read my books! Or watch my Youtube Mom videos!

More Than a Little Hair-Raising

          Today I am blogging about my hair.  Okay, it’s not really about my hair; it’s about my brain. But my hair played a key role this week.

          First, we must acknowledge that our brain does not operate the same way other people’s brains do.  By saying “our” I feel less lonely in this trial.

What happens to me is what happens to two of my friends, one of whom calls herself on the phone and the other of whom used glitter glue on her shoes, thinking it was shoe polish.

          Except these women have excuses. One survived a brain aneurism and the other survived major head trauma from a car wreck.  So it’s like they have “Get Out of Jail, Free” cards in Monopoly.

          For the rest of their lives, people will sympathize and smile.  After all, they’re lucky to be alive.  A little forgetfulness here and there is to be expected.

          Not so in Joniopolios.  Joni has no such excuses for the many times she has called herself on the phone, hunted for her phone while talking on it, or tried dozens of times to get into the wrong car in parking lots.

          Which brings us to my curly hair.  Sometimes I straighten it, and sometimes I wear it curly.  Viewers of my Youtube Mom videos have weighed in on this, all of which I appreciate, basically because I’m just glad they’re watching my channel.

But this week was a curly week, so I was standing before my bathroom mirror, spritzing it with water to make it curlier, and suddenly realized I had picked up the sprayer of cleaner, not the water spray bottle.  In my defense, they are about the same size.  BUT NOW MY HEAD IS COVERED WITH CONCENTRATED DEGREASER/CLEANER.

And today it is raining, so the chances are that my hair, now glopped up with a cleaner much stiffer than any hair product you can buy, is going to foam up like a cappuccino machine. This foam will then obey the laws of gravity and run straight into my eyes, burning them and causing me to drop to my knees in agony.  

So if you see a woman out in public, drenched, screaming, crumpling to the ground, and foaming from the top of her head, you’ll know who it is.

Or you can avoid this possibility by staying inside, Christmas shopping online, and buying my books here.