Valentine’s Day. A day for sweethearts. For lovers.
Tuesday the 14th. Just another day. So you would think.
It is now officially my unlucky day.
I had avoided dying my hair on Monday the 13th. That was my previous unlucky day. Just because.
So…I waited until today to dye my hair. I’ve done it myself many times. I’ve been working with painting fabrics. I’ve been doing quite well keeping said fabric paints off the clothes I’ve been wearing. And off just about everything else except my hands and what I want to paint.
The dye. Red dye. I was meant to have red hair, what can I say? I managed to splash it everywhere. In the sink, in the shower stall, onto sweatshirts I had hung to dry (and which has long since should have been put safely away). Maybe I can use my fabric paints to make it look like I meant to do that.
So I get the dye on my hair and set the timer. And I clean up the bathroom of all the red splatters before they become permanent. Some come up better than others. Oh, well, I have bleach.
Then I take my timer and sit down to play online for a while. What else can I do for 25 minutes while the dye sets? With 3 minutes to go, I take the timer back to the bathroom. I watch the timer count down to 0, then go blank. I watched it struggle a few seconds before it beeped and I shut it off. Pretty soon, the timer will match the watch that finally died last week.
As per the directions, I rinse thoroughly. I use a handheld shower head and lean over the tub. I find it easier that way, as I can see when the water runs clear. After what seems like 10 minutes (and was probably more like 3 or 4), the water was clear. I shut the water off and apply the special rinsing shampoo, lather, rinse. I apply the shampoo again – the directions explicitly say to shampoo twice to get all the dye out so as not to stain one’s clothing (though it’s already too late for that). I turn on the water again – and water spurts out of the hose where it joins the head.
I turn off the water, and, hair dripping and full of shampoo, and find the duct tape and scissors. I wind some duct tape around the part where the shower head meets the hose. Three layers, nice and tight. I turned on the water and started rinsing. The hose comes completely off the shower head, and water spurts everywhere as the hose is whipping around with the water pressure. (If duct tape isn’t meant to fix hoses, then what is it for? Besides making prom dresses and purses, that is.)
So I finish rinsing my hair using the hose as I would a garden hose. And used the conditioner and rinsed in the same manner. I was able to switch over the shower head to the original head (the one that came with the apartment) without incident.
I think my luck has changed for the better. I will not allow any more bad luck into my day.
