Just One Of Those Days

Yesterday I had a bad hair day. If you are a woman, you would know how catastrophic that can be. For the rest of you, let me try and break this down.

A bad hair day is when, for no apparent reason, your own hair turns against you and refuses to cooperate. I still haven’t figured out why my hair would turn against me this way, I thought we were on the same team. It’s probably because like in most partnerships that last long years, I take it for granted, devoting not more than two minutes of my morning styling it, or refusing to hold it neatly in a band so it’s not all over my face. Or maybe my hair has its own version of PMS, which gives it the ‘Nobody loves me anymore’ feel once every few weeks.

Whatever the reason, yesterday was one of those days. And over the years women have learnt, that whatever you do, do not underestimate a bad hair day. This is one of the days that can steal your sparkle. It can strip you of your confidence, take away the swag from your walk, the glint from your eye, the chuckle from your laugh. In short, it affects everything you do. So obviously, over the years, women have also built in arsenal to help us deal with such days. What did you think we were doing growing up?

There’s loads and loads of products – ones that clean, but then they leave the hair dry…so ones that condition, but leave the hair thin and lifeless….so ones that volumize, but leave the hair frizzy…so ones that de-frizz, but then leave the hair dry…. And so on.

I have opted out of the craziness of products personally (I had just 2 minutes for my hair, remember??) The options I was left with were to either ignore the problem altogether (or atleast pretend to), or style my hair in such a way that it would be least conspicuous to everyone. I opted for the first one, and prayed that no one would notice. I kept a low profile all day at work and out, and tried to believe that I was invisible to everyone.

Sometimes this is not enough though. Some bad hair days call for desperate measures. If keeping a low profile is not your style, or just not enough, it may be necessary to get out the big guns – that is, announce yourself loud and clear. Be so attractive in every other way, that no one has the time to notice your hair looks bad. Compensate for lost battles by trying to win the war. Personally I have never had to bring out my big guns yet, and I don’t know if I ever will. But you never know what a bad hair day can make a woman do!

You know, the funny thing is, that men are completely unaware of this ‘bad hair day’ phenomenon in women. It is a concept that is unfathomable to them (which is surprising, considering they are as likely to have bad hair days too). A woman could have a classic case of a bad hair day, and the men around her wouldn’t know the difference. I would be totally relieved to know that no one found out about my big secret, but hey, I would also feel bad – what?? No one even noticed?! 

Yeah, we are funny that way…..

The trees are budding, the birds are back, and the sun shines with all its might. And this is just March! Uncanny, not that I’m complaining….

It’s amazing how just a few days of warmth can initiate new life, transform the overall mood, throw love into the air, and make people like me get back to their writing.

Like Bertie Wooster puts it in the ‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ (Wodehouse):

“I don’t know if you know that sort of feeling you get on these days, when the sky’s a light blue, with cotton-wool clouds, and there’s a bit of breeze blowing from the west? Kind of uplifting feeling. Romantic, if you know what I mean. I’m not much of a ladies’ man, but on this particular morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to save her from assassins or something.”

Honestly, Honesty??

Honesty is the best policy – or so we were told by our parents and school teachers when we were kids. All grown up, I’m not so sure any more.  The world would be totally chaotic if you ask me, if we all were suddenly stricken with the deadly honestovirus.

In fact, it is not even possible to be completely honest in these times, if it even were at any time before this. How would we save our jobs by telling our boss he totally sucks? Diplomacy, when tactfully used, replaces honesty as the most valuable virtue to possess these days. Diplomacy has its limitations too, though. When overused it would just become manipulation, which I think is where we would start showing the tiny devil horns and fangs when we check ourselves out in the elevator glass.

It tickles me to wonder how complete honesty could play total havoc in my life when even used in a tiny little measure with, …my voicemail recording, for instance. What would I really want to say on my voicemail message, as opposed to what I have said now?:) Read along…

Diplomatic (actual) message: Hi, this is ____. I am not able to take your call right now, please leave your name blah blah and I will call you back as soon as I can.

Totally Honest (imaginary) message: I am obviously doing something more important than talking to you right now, and am either avoiding your call, or couldn't care less to keep my phone close to me. If you are someone from my offshore work team and are calling me in the middle of the night to get some technical solution from me which you could have easily found from a simple Google search, please press the little red button on your phone. If you are a creditor calling to remind me about an upcoming payment you want me to make, please call again to remind me everyday till I almost miss my deadline. If you are a pretentious friend, calling me to check on my life, while only wanting to talk about how great yours is, please don’t ever call again. If you are my boss, …damn, I’ll have to take this one.