Bad Hair Day

Some guy gave me the finger when I was dropping my daughter off at school this morning. I was wearing my cancer hat, my daughter calls it. Okay, okay, there's nothing funny about cancer, but that's what she calls it. And she's not being funny.

I pull away from the curb and there's this monster truck looming down on me out of nowhere. This is a middle school, remember, parents are in a perpetual state of shock. We let one another take cuts and don't think twice. We do little flutter waves and smile sheepishly. In fact, we are sheep. Overflowing with gratitude that someone is taking the little lambs off our hands for a few hours.

So this guy in this monster truck lays on his monster horn and flips me the bird. Then he rides my ass to the next intersection, where I'm turning left, and gives me the old horn-and-finger once more as he roars past. What could I do? I horned-and-fingered him right back.

If my daughter had witnessed this little exchange she'd have killed herself. She tries to ignore that I exist. She prefers that I not speak. She puts up with my breathing, but she's not happy about it.

So I come home after the truck episode and I'm standing in the pantry peacefully scalding my coffee, when Ka-Bam!! The microwave blows up. Nothing like a little electronic fireworks to get the old blood flowing. And the smell. It almost put me off coffee for a few nanoseconds.

I'll bet we've had seven Mister Coffees explode on us, maybe eight. You don't know how dependent you are until an appliance explodes.

A few years back our stove exploded. It was Christmas, we were expecting company. Luckily we knew a guy who knew a guy who was the cousin of a guy who lived next door to a guy who worked in an appliance store. We put the old stove out in a snowbank where it smoldered until spring.

I can't remember if this was before or after the refrigerator blew up.

Oh, and remind me to tell you about the time the sauna exploded.

I don't know why my daughter calls it my cancer hat. It's a little faux leopard skin number, like that Dylan song. I've had it since the first Bush. It sits on top my head like a bottle cap, like you could unscrew it. My hair disappears when I wear it. That's probably why.

Not that my hair disappearing changes anything. I may have a couple things going for me, but hair isn't one of them. Having bad hair is why I'm not famous. If I'd had good hair it would've been a whole different ballgame. I figure I've spent years futzing with my hair, years that might've gone into something more constructive. Like a career. I've never had a career, I've had jobs. One of my jobs has been to create the illusion of hair where there is none.

Every few years my blow dryer blows up.

Not only that, it's our wedding anniversary. Friday the 13th. You don't know how dependent you are until you've been married sixty-seven years. We spent this one in Sears, buying a new microwave. When we got home I checked voicemail, someone wishing us Happy Anniversary. I pressed seven. I always press seven. This message will be saved for one hundred days, the maximum time allowed. Unless the phone explodes.