Posted on 01/15/2016 10:44:27 AM PST by nickcarraway
When I realized my hair was turning orange under the white dye goo, I finally hit send on the text I was hoping to avoid: “EMERGENCY. I’m getting something really stupid done to my hair.â€
My friend Nicole left work and rushed to join me. But first, I had to send her the address of the cheap chain salon, embarrassing enough all on its own. Nicole has lustrous hair and healthy self-respect. I saw her eyes bug as she clocked my goopy head, the indifferent stylist already wandering away to shampoo another customer.
“This morning, I ran the numbers,†I told her, my cheeks hot. “Since 2010 alone, I’ve spent something like $11,285 on highlights. Including $2,546 this last year.â€
“Right. But didn’t you text me that you weren’t going to do this anymore?â€
“And then I looked at my roots and I panicked,†I whispered. “I need a hair breathalyzer. Like the courts put in the cars of people who get DUIs. Something to keep me from making decisions when I’m suffering from a hair-induced freak-out.â€
Confessing all this to Nicole, who knows and loves me, was one thing. Confessing it to the world, now, is another. Can I say in my defense that spending $11,285 on foil highlights conflicts with the way I usually live my life? That I think you can be a serious person and spend loads on your hair?
Over the same five-year period, I doubled my income, built up my 401(k), and opened a regular brokerage account to buy individual stocks. Plus, my husband and I paid off all our debt — $27,000 in student loans — and saved up a 40 percent down payment for our place.
I write about personal finance sometimes, and occasionally receive admiring emails from strangers praising me for my good financial decisions. But I expect that to stop right about … now.
Maybe that $11,285 figure still seems egregious. I’ll admit it struck me the same way; that’s why I resolved to quit that fateful morning. However I looked at it, $11,285 was still more than I’d donated to charity, or spent on gifts for my family. No longer, I swore. Let the roots come in as they may. I’ll do a half-assed ombré for as long as it takes.
My resolve lasted exactly four hours. And then I went and got a $62 all-over dye job that turned my hair — light-brown roots, remaining blonde highlights and all — the streaky orange of a tropical sunset.
The worst thing? That one terrible dye job could pretty much stand in for my whole blonde experience. Because, while I was spending this egregious amount of money, I was also trying — on and off — to save money. So, most of the time, my hair didn’t even look that great. It really looked nice only after my very first session at a high-end salon (which involved many elaborate processes and cost $400). After that, it was downhill, owing to the law that says that if you keep highlighting your hair, and you’re not nearly selective enough about where you get it done, your whole head becomes a highlight. You just keep getting blonder and blonder until you look like Courtney Love circa 1997.
What’s more, all this has the effect of breaking your hair, because that bleach is strong and your stylist really needs to take this call from her boyfriend who’s been texting with that bitch from Philly again. You could say I spent $11,285 to make my hair a color I didn’t much like, and to poison it.
Still, I did like it! I do like it. There are benefits. Going blonde is an old trick, but it’s a good trick. According to my own calculations, it can add as much as a half-point to our scores — which, especially for those of us not born in the upper-upper registers of the 10-point attractiveness scale, is statistically significant.
Going from a 6 to a 6.5, for example, represents an 8.3 percent increase in attractiveness, while going from a 6.5 to a 7 makes for a still-desirable 7.7 percent leap. Even if one had to spend a corresponding percentage of one’s disposable income, it might make sense. (Of course, results may vary; my own advance up the scale has been less dramatic. The last time I got catcalled, the guy yelled, “Girl, you look just like a second-grade teacher!†Disconcerting largely because it's true.)
I have noticed how my fellow chemical blondes nod at me in recognition. I nod right back. Being a natural blonde merely means being born with yellow hair — but us, we have worked to earn our way into this club. There’s intention behind our hair color. If your taste defines you, as our consumerist society tends to believe, then isn’t choosing to be blonde actually the more authentic experience?
Anyway, why judge? I mean, maybe we’ve all done this because we want to meet some patriarchal standard we had no part in setting. But look at it another way: Maybe we’ve done it because we want to get laid better and more enthusiastically — $11,285 for better sex, without exploiting anyone other than a few hair follicles? That’s a worthy enough goal that you could stop the inquiry right there.
Besides, to assign it a reason is to miss the point. Blonde hair has reached its cultural escape velocity. Like Coca-Cola or denim, it’s no longer a setpiece but a permanent feature. You might as well ask why the sky is blue. I think I would have to have had a good reason not to go blonde. And not just once — more like all 59 times I’ve made the choice.
I didn’t squander that $11,285. In accounting terms, it’s what’s called capital expenditure and maintenance — not a one-time transaction, but a periodic expense from which I realize a return on my investment. So rather than feel guilty and swear off expensive highlights (or worse, feel guilty and not swear off expensive highlights), I will behave like a person who knows something about money and calmly assess whether I come out ahead.
Let’s consider potential returns:
One: Career advancement. Nope. I don’t have a pretty-person job. I work from home, in sweatpants. Returns: $0.
Two: The establishment of an epic correspondence with Nicole that involves sending each other Instagram photos of nicely done blonde highlights. Returns: Endless entertainment, plus a packed desktop folder labeled “HAIR.†Definitely worth it.
Three: Sprinting home yesterday from my $190 balayage color correction with the same subtle blonde highlights that I had five years ago, which knocked the grand total up to $11,537 but made me feel so relieved that I pushed my husband out the door and told him to take a walk around the block so I could Flashdance in our kitchen. Returns: At least $11,537 worth of good vibes.
In other words, money well spent. Some people will spend $11,537 on personal trainers, or gourmet meals, or a used Toyota Corolla. I spent it on my hair. And I regret nothing.
* INSERT BLOND JOKE HERE *
>> Some people will spend $11,537 on personal trainers, or gourmet meals, or a used Toyota Corolla. I spent it on my hair. And I regret nothing.
New York Values, baby!
Blonde Joke: How did the blonde lose $11,537?
A coworker shared the advice he gave his daughter as she turned a teenager. I’ve shared it with my own.
If you want to catch a man, work on your looks.
If you want to keep a man, work on your personality.
That would be redundant.
Way back when I was in the Army (early ‘90s), a blonde, female SFC in my unit went to sick call after having a dizziness episode. No lie, when she told the medic about it, his first response was “dye your hair”. She was more than a little ticked when she got back to the unit.
Unreadable.
Can you repost without all the ۪۪۪???
Thanks.
A blonde told her friend ‘Last night I slept with a Brazilian.’ Her friend was shocked! ‘OMG, how many is a brazilian?’
Her life must be pretty good if this is all she’s concerned about.
Eighty thousand blondes met at the Hollywood Bowl for the big event; a “Blondes Are Not Stupid” convention.
The Master of Ceremonies began by saying, “Greetings, all. We’re here today to prove to the world that blondes are not stupid. Can I have a volunteer, please?”
In a moment, one of the blondes had stepped up, and the MC asked her, “What is fifteen plus fifteen?”
After ten or twenty seconds, the blonde replied, “Eighteen.”
The MC, crestfallen, shook his head, after which there was a collective groan from the audience.
Then, as one, the eighty thousand blondes started chanting, “Give her another chance! Give her another chance!”
The Master of Ceremonies thus responded, “Well, since we’ve gone to the trouble of getting eighty thousand of you here, and since the media is watching, I guess we can give her another chance.”
Once more he posed a question, “What is five plus five?”
After ten or twenty seconds, she replied, “Twelve.”
Hugely disappointed, the Master of Ceremonies sighed. With that, everyone in the stands groaned once more, and, to make matters worse, the blonde started crying.
Again, the eighty thousand blondes present began chanting, “Give her another chance! Give her another chance!”
Uncertain whether he’s doing the cause harm or good, at length the Master of Ceremonies relented.
“Okay!” he called out. “One more chance. What is 2 plus 2?”
After ten or twenty seconds, the blonde replied, “Four.”
Without missing a beat, the eighty thousand blondes present began chanting, “Give her another chance! Give her another chance!”
A blonde pushes her BMW into a gas station. She tells the mechanic it died. After he works on it for a few minutes, it is idling smoothly. She says, “What’s the story?”
He replies, “Just crap in the carburetor”
She asks, “How often do I have to do that?”
A highway patrolman pulled alongside a speeding car on the freeway.
Glancing at the car, he was astounded to see that the blonde behind the wheel was knitting!
Realizing that she was oblivious to his flashing lights and siren, the trooper cranked down his window, turned on his bullhorn and yelled, “PULL OVER!”
“NO!” the blonde yelled back, “IT’S A SCARF!”
A blonde was driving home and got caught in a really bad hailstorm. Her car was covered with dents, so the next day she took it to the repair shop. The shop owner decided to have some fun, and told her just to go home and blow into the tail pipe really hard and all the dents would pop out.
Accordingly, the woman went home, got down on her hands and knees, and started blowing into her tailpipe.
Nothing happened.
She blew a little harder. Still nothing happened.
She blew even harder. Still nothing.
It was then that her blonde roommate came out, saw her, and asked, “What on Earth are you doing?”
The first blonde told the second blonde how the repairman had instructed her to blow into the tailpipe in order to get all the dents to pop out.
With this, the second rolled her eyes and said, “Duh, Hello! You need to roll up the windows first!”
A blonde grabbed a large thermos and hurried to a nearby coffee shop, where an employee came over to take her order.
“Is this big enough to hold six cups of coffee?” the blonde asked.
He took a look at the thermos and replied, “Yeah, it looks like about six cups to me.”
“Oh, good!” the blonde said. “Then give me two regular, two black and two decaf.”
A blonde housewife from the neighborhood, wanting to earn some extra ‘mad’ money, decided to hire herself out as a ‘handy-woman,’ and started canvassing all the houses in a nearby, much more wealthy part of town.
Descending from the bus, walking down a well-manicured and tree-lined suburban boulevard, she proceeded to the front door of the first house she saw, knocked, and asked the owner if he had any odd jobs for her.
“Well, I’ve been thinking of having the front porch painted,” the man said, scratching his chin. “How much will you charge me?”
The blonde, after looking about, responded, “How about fifty dollars?”
The man agreed, and told her that the paint and other materials she might need were in the garage. Then he closed the door and returned to reading his newspaper.
The man’s wife, however, had overheard the exchange, and, once he was again inside, said to him, “Sweetie, fifty dollars doesn’t seem like an awful lots for a job like that. Does she realize that the porch goes all the way around the house?”
“Well, Dear,” the man replied, “she should; she was standing on it. Do you think she’s dumb?”
“No,” the wife shook her head. “You’re right; I’m being unfair. That ‘dumb blonde’ thing is a stereotype, and these days we’re not to think in terms of stereotypes.”
A short time later, the blonde came to the door to collect her money.
“You’re finished already?” the husband asked her.
“Oh, yes,” the blonde chirped sweetly, “and I had paint left over, so I gave it two coats.”
“Wow,” the man responded. “That’s excellent!”
Then, very favorably impressed, the man reached into his pocket, retrieved fifty dollars, and handed it to her.
“By the way,” the blonde added cheerfully, as he paid out two crisp, new twenties and a ten, “it’s not a Porch; it’s a Lexus.”
Two blondes are walking down the street. One notices a compact on the sidewalk and leans down to pick it up. She opens it, looks in the mirror and says, “Hmm, this person looks familiar.”
The second blonde says, “Here, let me see!” So the first blonde hands her the compact.
The second one looks in the mirror and says, “You dummy, it’s me!”
I know of a brunette who went to the doctor and complained that no matter WHERE she touched herself she experienced excruciating pain. Doctor said “Nah, can’t happen.” She proceeded to use her index finger to touch her breast, her butt, her stomach and her shoulder,and screamed loudly and agonizingly. Doc ruminated on this for a while and asked “You are not a true brunette, are you?” She answered No, I’m a blonde. Doctor looked at her and said “You have a broken finger.”
That is a great song.
From memory:
“I want to be a veterinarian, because I LOOOOVE kids!”
“I’m getting something really stupid done to my hair.†My friend Nicole left work and rushed to join me. “
New York values.
That’s funny.
* INSERT BLOND JOKE HERE *
Blonds would never spend this much money to become blond.
Don’t blame.
Why are blond jokes so short?
.
.
.
.
So brunettes and understand them.
Two blondes on either side of a swollen, flooded river. One shouts to the other, "How do I get to the other side of the river?" The other replies, "You ARE on the other side of the river!"
Two blondes were driving along a road by a wheat field when they saw a blonde in the middle of the field rowing a row boat.
The blonde driving turned to her friend and said “You know - it’s blondes like that that give us a bad name!”
To this, the other blonde replies, “I know it, and if I knew how to swim I’d go out there and drown her.”
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