A bit of an incident

There’s been a bit of an incident.

A squirty sort of incident.

A splashy sort of incident.

A splattery sort of incident.

A running around and shouting expletives that begin with S incident.

 

I had decided it was time to dye my hair. I don’t do it often--maybe every three months--and in between I try to keep the colour up with more natural methods like mixing cocoa powder with my shampoo. But it seemed time and so I went to the Health Food Shop and purchased a bottle of no ammonia healthy vegan hair dye. 

 

I came home and did it just like I normally do. I took off my glasses.  I mixed the small bottle in the big bottle. I shook it for 2 minutes. I popped off the safety cap. I gave it a gentle squeeze on the top of my head. So far so good. I got about half way finished and leaned my head down to get to the back of my head and that’s when it happened.

 

This is where it went terribly, horribly, no good, very badly wrong. The stuff inexplicably rocketed out at a crazy angle.  I screamed in slow motion and whipped around to see it make a huge splattery mark all over the back of the door. Some of it even got on the towel.

 

I quickly abandoned the hair dye and rushed to the kitchen to grab a wipe up cloth. I came back and tried to wipe it away with cold water.

 

It didn’t work.

 

I tried wiping it with hot water.

 

It didn’t work.

 

I ran to find the bottle of bleach we keep for emergencies.

 

It didn’t work.

 

I grabbed the instructions and searched in vain for directions on how to deal with this mess. I couldn’t work out why I couldn’t seem to read anything.

 

I’ll tell you why.

1. I wasn’t wearing my glasses

2. The light was poor so I brought it to the kitchen to look by the window.

3. It turned out I was trying read the part of the instructions that appear in French.

 

What it did say when I finally had the sense to flip the instructions over was something akin to Don’t let it spill anywhere as it may stain.

 

Well no shit, Sherlock.

 

I didn’t know what to do. I quickly finished colouring my hair as carefully as I could. I set the timer then I tried to continue scrubbing it.

 

It didn’t work.

 

So this is what we are left with.

 

How in the hell did it squirt all the way to the door? The door is a metre and a half away  (60 inches). Why did it decide to rocket downwards at such a strange angle?

 

Well I’ll tell you. They’ve only gone and put a bevelled bit on the squirty nozzle. So when I shifted the angle of the bottle to reach the back of my head, the goopy stuff shot out at a weird side angle. I hadn’t spotted it because I wasn’t wearing my glasses.

 

So now, I’m afraid we are stuck with it. It will be  a constant reminder of the price of vanity.  Can it be considered art?  It actually looks a bit like a human heart, complete with blood splatters. Perhaps it is symbolic of a broken heart. I could win the Turner Prize for Art and be the next Tracey Emin. Or Banksy. It has a real graffiti-ish feel to it.  I could use it in an exhibition with Elvis singing softly in the background and call it:

 

The door of broken hearts that leads to Heartbreak Hotel, down at the end of  lonely street.

 

It makes a statement.

 That statement is:

 I am a bit of a dumbass.