Monday evening:
Rebecca is tired of the highlights that were added to her hair over the summer. She decides to buy some drugstore hair color and apply it herself. She picks a warm chestnut brown that *appears* to be close to her natural color. She puts the color on, which seems to be midnight-dark when it’s wet, but we’re sure it will lighten when it dries. That was misplaced confidence. When dry, her hair took on the characteristics of a black hole, sucking all the light out of surrounding areas. Apply some pale make-up and blood-colored lipstick and she would have had the goth look down. There were many tears and claims that she would be unable to show her face at school looking like Morticia Addams.

Tuesday afternoon:
We make the rounds to several salons to talk about what corrective action needs to be taken, but find out that the first appointment anywhere is not until Thursday. She will have to grit her teeth and bear the humiliation another two days at school. There are more tears, but finally a stony resignation that she’ll have to wait.

Thursday afternoon:
3:15 We arrive at the salon and are informed by the stylist that this is a many-step procedure and that the “corrective color” process by itself is $75/hour (and is like the phone companies who bill the full amount for a fraction of the next time slot). She tells Rebecca her hair will be dry and damaged after all this, but should not fall out. Probably.
3:30 The corrective color treatment (essentially a bleaching process) is applied and Rebecca sits under the dryer for 30 minutes.
4:15 I finish the first book I brought with me (Therapy by Jonathan Kellerman; not a bad police procedural. On a side note – I’ve been remiss in writing about what I’ve been reading lately, mainly because the books have been pretty trashy and don’t really warrant a write-up.) and head off to CVS to pick up a few things (my hairdryer broke this week – who knew that there would be a selection of at least a dozen dryers to choose from, all with mysteriously different features that appear to have nothing to do with actually drying hair – I picked the one that changes color as it heats up) and to get Rebecca a sandwich from Subway (she eats “lunch” at the absurd hour of 10:30 AM – I’ll hold off on commentary about the incompetence of the people at our public school).
4:45 The bleach is rinsed off and an intense conditioner is applied. A plastic cap is put over her hair and she sits under the dryer again for another half hour. Her eyes start to water from the heat of the dryer. I am reading People magazine, designed to make you feel fat and poor, no matter what your actual circumstances are.
5:30 The conditioner is rinsed out and the new color is applied. Another 30 minutes wait for the color to take. I start to read Stanley Bing’s new book You Look Nice Today, but can’t concentrate amid the fumes.
6:15 The color is rinsed out and Rebecca’s hair is dried. I am reduced to reading some weekly magazine that is even lower on the journalistic food chain than People. The snarky “what not to wear” section is my favorite.
6:30 Two new colors for highlights are chosen (yeah, I know this was the root cause of this entire debacle – I have no excuse for allowing it again) and are applied. This process takes about 3 times longer than it should because Rebecca has about 3 times the hair of most people. Another decade passes while we wait for the highlights to set. I try to access the web from my phone, but the performance is abysmal, so I give up and play Klondike instead.
7:15 The highlights are done, her hair is washed and conditioned and she explains to the stylist how she wants it cut. I am wondering how the one stylist can possibly be on her feet all day in 4 inch heels.
7:40 The cut is done, the hair is dried, everyone in the salon celebrates and declares victory over the evil drugstore color. The stylist is congratulated as if she won an Olympic medal.
7:45 We walk out the door four and a half hours after we entered, financially bereft, but oh so much richer in the time we had to bond. There are more tears. This time they are mine as I realize that the total bill was more than a month’s salary when I first started working.