A visit to the hairstylist leaves the Major’s wife a modern Medusa
Times Colonist (Victoria)
Sun Aug 25 2013
Page: D4
Section: Monitor
Byline: Major’s Corner
Column: Nigel Smythe-Brown
Source: Times Colonist
Most of my loyal readers will have by now grasped the fact that I have never dealt well with sudden change.
In fact, I don’t much like change at all. I prefer the known path, trodden by my shoes of life, every centimetre recognizable to my now old and rheumy eyes. I have determined that the cause for the frequent ruptures to my carefully chosen way is because I share said journey with others, namely Kitty, my wife of some 50 years.
I tend to follow that odd duck Jean-Paul Sartre (existentialism) in only one category: company. The stinkbomb Sartre (he only reluctantly washed) said a wonderful thing once: “Hell is other people.”
Does that not soar as a banner to march behind? In my case, but for a few mems around the club, I like to wallow in my study amongst my books with only myself as an agreeable friend. Life is perfect that way. No other people.
We all know, however, that this state of bliss cannot last, as the blather of the early 21st century breaches the walls of peaceful existence and gracious solitude is no more.
When Kitty walked into my study last week without knocking, I had a start, and not a small one. I think I would have been within my rights as a slumbering husband to accuse her of something close to attempted murder; shocks in my time of life could see me off the playing field, so to speak. In short, it was a frightful act of disregard on her part.
Kitty had just returned from her hairdresser, and had clearly been the recipient of bad advice. When the room stopped tilting, I dimly remembered my wife had said something about visiting a more avant-garde “designer” of hair rather than the mundane “dresser.”
It was all Greek to me, but what now stood before me was very much a Greek Gorgon, if not Medusa herself.
I shivered as I looked at what had become of my true love, the mother of our children. The familiar hair, now flame-red, piled high and disagreeably made larger by what are called extensions, in case you are a chap like me, in the dark about such matters.
Included in this appalling sight was an unrecognizable face that appeared to have been hit with a pumpkin pie. The (as I came to learn) fake tan was so extreme I thought of calling 911, assuming that what was standing before me had just been victimized by a flash fire.
Then the tears arrived in buckets as Kitty called upon her crowd of like-minded friends for comfort. I was seen as a selfish male stuck in my stupid old ways, never allowing my partner (wife) to “grow and blossom” with a new look and outlook. Oh, woe is me, etc.
Let the record show that I never said a word throughout the ordeal, simply a few throat spasms like “Umph” and “Jeez,” but not a censorious phrase or sentence escaped my full lips. However, as I have said, the jury found no room for pity and I was for the high jump, at least socially.
I wonder what they would have said if I had worn extensions, took a pie between the eyes and worn an orange suit? I would probably have an appointment with the local Dr. Freud to talk about an unnatural love for my kindergarten teacher and latent bed-wetting. I am an innocent caught up in I know not what. My question remains the same. Why cannot I have my wife back the way she was? It is not that I am against a late summer spruce-up, as everyone could use a polish of some sort. But to mess about radically with the way one looks is to remove a critical plank from the deck of one’s marriage. It is to lose one’s compass, methinks.
copyright christopher dalton 2015
Leave a Reply