Three Things
I.
I’ve swelled up like a puffer fish for the winter. You know how puffer fish swell up in winter, when they have December birthdays and they keep eating birthday cake for breakfast. You know how puffer fish can’t even eat bread without gaining weight. You know how, after puffer fish gain a little too much weight and have to buy a new pair of pants for work, they’ll start eating salad for a while and getting back into the Dance Dance Revolution? Well, I’m gonna do that, too. I’m gonna do like a puffer fish.
II.
There’s this guy at my work – one of those guys that everyone calls Mr. So-and-So instead of just Dan or Bill or Bob. So let’s call him Mr. Man. Mr. Man is actually way cooler than people first think upon meeting him. He has cool drawings framed in his office. But, even after knowing this, I still call him Mr. Man and I try to avoid letting him see me goofing off.
The other day in the elevator on the way home, Mr. Man asked me if I’d done something different with my hair. “Um… It’s growing,” I said. The other elevator patrons, all women, made faces of mild bemusement. It’s not like my hair was a green and purple mohawk or anything. It was nothing worthy of the notice of someone like Mr. Man – just shoulder-length reddish brown hair. Maybe a little brassy on the ends, but nothing against company dress code.
“No… It used to be black,” said Mr. Man, as if he’d apprehended me in a cover-up attempt. Our companions turned to me to see how I’d return that volley.
“Well,” I explained – and this is the kind of explanation that a woman never bothers to give a man she isn’t romantically involved with, out of the certainty of boring him to tears – “it wasn’t really black. It was dark auburn. See, I colored it a few months ago, but then the dark part faded and just left the auburn. So what you’re seeing now is the left-over reddishness on top of the caramel highlights I had last summer. It looks a little different, but I didn’t change it. It’s been gradually changing on its own. That’s what happens when you color your hair.”
Mr. Man looked at me but said nothing. I don’t know if he bought it. The other women on the elevator nodded their heads in complete understanding.
We all got off the elevator and scattered to our respective exits. As soon as we were safely out of earshot of Mr. Man, me and this other woman looked at each other and laughed.
This past weekend, I covered my brassiness with a color called French Roast, which purports to be “deep bronzed brunette.” I’ve been avoiding Mr. Man in the halls. I don’t want to give him any more cause for suspicion.
III.
I bought something completely decadent. Ready? It was a six-pack of Canfield’s Diet Cherry Chocolate Fudge soda.
At first I didn’t want to buy it because it cost $2.79 – more than I’d normally pay for a whole case of soda. But then my cousin Randy pointed out to me, there at Central Market, that the per-can price still came out to less than fifty cents. And that’s less than I pay for a diet ginger ale at the little store here in the basement of our work. So – there you go.
It tastes like chocolate-covered cherries, liquified and carbonated. It’s pretty good.
