Dye-ing

Did no one tell him Depp got the Pirates role?

As the father of two daughters and the husband of one amazing woman, I have come to know precious little about the rituals associated with women and their "foxification." I will never pretend that I get it.

There is one part of that ritual that I don't get and it tears a little bit of my heart on the occasions that it happens. I speak of the dyeing of the hair. For some reason, it busts me up when my daughters dye their hair. Now let me be clear - what is happening here is not the stuff of a father's nightmare. It's not like they are Nikki Minaj extreme or going to Stormie's House of Highlights for said work. No, it's tame stuff but it rips me up just the same. Why? Because as far as I'm concerned they are perfection.

What's brought this on? Last night, in a bold and wise move of timing, CAL announced she was getting her hair colored today, thus saving her from my nagging. 'What color?' I sputtered. Blonde was the response. This from my brown-haired beauty. After I was revived, I was informed it wasn't a full dye job but highlights. I chose to say no more and go to bed, knowing that by the time I got home today, I'd see the results. Thanks to social media, I saw the results via Twitter and she looks beautiful. It's all good.

It got me thinking about my own unfortunate, and ill-advised, time with some blonde in my own hair. It was not nearly as unfortunate as the above-pictured train wreck of Mr. Cage but it was not good. This all went down in March of 1985, as I was thawing out from my first full winter in Provo, while at BYU. In yet another poorly executed attempt at trying to be cool, I'd been to the tanning salon a couple of times and decided that getting a little bit of color in my hair would be the perfect compliment to my mildly orange 'fake'n bake' tinged skin. It most decidedly was not but adding a little blonde seemed like a way to raise the hackles of the Honor Code militants looming over us from the 12th floor of the SWKT. Anyway, so I went to see Tova at, wait for it, Bon Losee, and she subtly applied the blonde. When it was all said and done, it looked barely colored. It would only light up in the sun.

About a week later, I put my all mid-80's cool on the plane to go home for the weekend. My father met me at the airport. He looked, well, distressed disappointed, as I disembarked.  Apparently, the subtle color was not subtle to him. I was going to Stake Conference that weekend, where he was presiding, and my chemically treated coif was not what he envisioned. Suffice to say, it made for a long weekend.

I let the color fade, along with any hopes of ever being 'cool.' Or so I thought at the time. So nearly 30 years later, I can say no dye has hit this scalp since that fateful spring of 1985. As the gray takes over aggressively, I'm fine with it. What other choice do I have?