don't judge a blue by its color

I was in the middle of production for a play in high school, when the announcement was made that we weren’t to do anything to alter our physical appearance. Because I couldn’t, I wanted to, even though altering my appearance (i.e. dyeing hair, shaving head, full-face tattoo, etc.) had never appealed to me. So I did what any normal 16-year-old would. I axed my dad if I could pierce my eyebrow after the final show. I had bushy eyebrows and thought it would be interesting to see how long it would take people to notice it. At the time, my dad found my logic to be as stupid as it is...

(note, this is why we have parents, to keep us from doing ALL of the stupid things we want to do.)

Anyway, since the piercing was a no-go, not that I would have done it anyway (I don’t want to look like a tackle box, and I don’t need any extra holes) I settled for second best, dyeing my hair. (OK, I would have chickened out on the piercing thing.) I would have shaved my head, but I looked really stupid the last time I had done that. So I started looking for the dye, and figuring out which color to use. I decided on blue. Dark, navy blue. I think it was close to halloween so it was pretty easy finding odd hair color dyes.

Me and my dad picked it up from the store, and one of my friends from school that was in the show was going to help me color my hair. The show wrapped up it was time to dye my hair. It was pretty easy, just put the goop on your hair and rinse your hair after a little bit, there were just a few unforeseen problems...

First, I didn’t know that blonde is actually one of the strongest hair colors, making it very resistant to dye, even though it is very “light.” This meant that the dark blue actually came out almost like a pastel blue. Not the shock value I was going for, more of an invitation to call me names, like Smurf...

Second, it faded quickly, so it looked like baby puke on my head.

Third, I was supposed to be a leader in the youth group. It actually became a “big” topic of discussion. People (like Tabitha Burgett) still bring it up even 12 years after the fact. Motives aside (just wanting to do something different), I still made a statement I may not have intended. I was in a store with my dad (who now had to walk around with his blue-haired son) when the cashier mentioned a store to my dad. She then said to me “it’s a store people like you would like.” I had suddenly been labeled as a gothic something-something-something-or-other, kind of person, because I had blue hair.

All that trouble, and it wasn’t even the kind of blue I wanted...