Okay since I used up my Kleenex writing my last post, let’s get some things clear.  This post is not going to be a) heavy, b) depressing or c) lengthy.   Okay maybe a little lengthy because I can’t figure out how to get my posts to be shorter.  Thanks for your patience.

So early this morning I went to get my hair colored because this new getting gray hair thing just plain pisses me off.  Along with needing reading glasses.   No one told me that my body would start immediately deteriorating at warp speed the minute I turned 43. This isn’t funny.

So I’m in the salon waiting the allotted 20 minutes as my color processes and I check my email.  Two emails are friends letting me know that the Denver Post printed my letter to the editor in today’s paper.  Crap, I forgot to check my paper before I left because I was running late.  Not surprising for me.  And before I left I had a client sending me messages with RED FLAGS of importance for matters far from urgent.

I clicked on the email link to the paper.  Cool, they really printed it.  But it just looked like a blog post.  I wanted to see it in real life because that’s the closest thing I’ve had to a byline in years.  Since they don’t let me add bylines to my data sheet copy selling underground fuel storage tank monitoring equipment.  (Yes, my work is Sexy.) I wanted a paper.

I looked at the timer that my stylist had set next to me and then I looked in the mirror.  I have never had so much dye and so many crazy looking foils all over my head in my lifetime.  I’ve gotten highlights before but this time I was switching things up with my color, so she had to empty the store room of color product in order to apply it all over my graying head.  And all the foils where gathered and gooped together into a column pointing up and out the back of my head.  I looked like that creature from Alien, but without all the spit.  I was looking hot.

But I wanted a paper, damn it.  I looked at the lady in the chair next to me.  I asked her if she thought I would frighten people if I walked over to Dazbog Coffee to ask if they sell papers.  Her eyebrows raised and she suggested I have one of the receptionists at the salon go get a paper for me.  But I was perfectly able.  And I’m sure Dazbog would be nearly empty at this time in the morning.

So I grabbed my purse and headed out.  I now had 14 minutes and I wanted a newspaper.  And I didn’t want to wait.

I walked down the sidewalk past people having coffee and got some stares. No biggie.  Then I walk in, with my sassy salon smock and Alien-shaped-hair-color- foiled head.  The place is packed.  With business people. Really? I made a joking comment to the lady in front of me in line so she wouldn’t be frightened if she turned around and wasn’t prepared.  I looked across to my left and at least four or five men were motioning toward me and staring, among plenty others there.  Maybe guys really have no idea what we go through to look so freaking fabulous? Good grief.

Another lady walked up and totally got it.  Time is money.  Gotta get stuff done.  Next, Dazbog girl points me in the direction of the newspapers in the middle of the cafe loungey area.

The clock was ticking.  I was over it. I grabbed a stack of papers, pulled over at a table near the line and started looking through the sections to find my letter. Then I get the feeling that someone close is watching me even more closely.  I turn my head slowly and see that there is a little three-year-old girl who is squeezing her Mom’s hand and staring at me with her jaw dropped.  Just like the kid  in the  Monsters, Inc. movie.  I think she may have wet herself, I’m not sure.  She was scared to death. I apologized to her Mom and told her I was worried this might happen.  She told me it wasn’t a problem and she does the same thing sometimes.  Yeah right.

The Dazbog gal told me I could keep the paper so I sprinted back to the salon, passing more tables of people staring.  I was over it by now and wanted to pull a foil out, hand it to them and keep on walking.

Mission was complete: hair turned out okay, I looked a little less mommish and I had a pretty good time freaking people out, except for the little girl who may have wet herself.

Plus I got my paper and saw my name in print.  Oh, and helped my cause. For all this, I am grateful.