My Thriller of a Sunday

“Are you channeling Michael Jackson?” Cap’n Firepants asked me this morning.

Those of you who know me well would agree on the hilarity of that suggestion – since I am, first of all, a 44-year-old chubby white girl and, more importantly, have about as much rhythm as a washing machine on the spin cycle.  The Cap’n was not hallucinating, however.

“Oh, you mean this black glove on my hand?”

“Yes, that is what I mean.”

“That is my special heat-resistant glove, designed to protect me from burning my sensitive skin while I create a masterpiece of a hairdo with my new, super-duper curling wand.”

“O.K.”  He bent his head to study the remote control in his hand – or to hide his smirk of doubt.

I waved my special heat-resistant hand at him in what I assumed to be a gesture akin to telling him to “Beat It”, and prepared to give myself lovely spiral curls that would be the envy of anyone addicted to the Home Shopping Network Hair Care website.

You actually don’t have to know me well to be aware of the fact that I am hopeless at doing hair – mine or anyone else’s.  This is probably why I am obsessed with Donald Trump; I secretly identify with him.  I have had one successful hair triumph in the last year, and that resulted in a different kind of disaster, so I haven’t even attempted to repeat that event.

But I stupidly walked into Ulta yesterday to get some lipstick and ended up walking out with a large stick for curling my hair.  Since today was Sunday, and my presence in public was not required, I decided it was the perfect day to experiment.

I would like to give you a few words of advice if you attempt to curl your own hair using a special heat-resistant glove.  Firstly, it helps if you put the glove on the hand that is actually going to be making contact with the hot end of the curling wand – instead of the hand that is clutching the barrel, safely out of harm’s way.

I learned that when I did my first curl.

Hint Numero Deux:  “heat-resistant” does not mean “heat-proof“.  If it takes you ten minutes to wrap a tendril of hair around the wand, then you will probably start feeling the heat through the glove.  And you might then drop the wand on your foot, which does not happen to be wearing a heat-resistant glove, and then you might say some words that will amuse your husband, who is surreptitiously spying on you from the bedroom as he pretends to be watching football.

And the third hint:  just because it is called a curling “wand” does not mean you are suddenly a wizard at Hogwarts.  Unless you are Ron Weasley trying to to wield his useless, broken wand. So, don’t point it at yourself unless you want to start vomiting slugs.

Surprisingly, I made it around my head with relatively few third-degree burns and no slug-inducing mis-spells.  I examined “The Woman in the Mirror”, and I limped out into the bedroom to model for Cap’n Firepants.

“I like it,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, and almost asked, “Do You Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’?”  But Cap’n Firepants does not tell me he likes something unless he means it.  It can be devastating when we are about to go somewhere, and he says that my hair style is “not my favorite”, but at least I know his rare compliments are heartfelt.

So, now that the Cap’n thinks that I look like a “Pretty Young Thing”, I have given the heat-resistant glove and its Miraculous Wand a place of honor on our bathroom counter.

This may be the start of something “Dangerous”.

Yeah. Not me. If you want to see what I look like, you can go here.
photo credit: …love Maegan via photopin cc

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Those Are Not Her Mother’s Genes

courtesy of "opalandtheidiot" on Flickr

The older Dimples gets, the more convinced I become that she is not our biological child. Someone switched kids on us, and I’m starting to get a better picture of the other set of parents involved in this deception. Apparently they have the following people somewhere in their family tree:

Shirley Temple – There is not one person that I know of in Cap’n Firepants’ or my families with dimples. Where the heck did those come from? The REAL Parents. Don’t give me any lectures about pea plants and recessive genes. I’ve seen Temple singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop”, and it’s Dimples with tap shoes.

Elvis or Michael Jackson – The kid has rhythm. She has been taking dance for five years, and she actually can do it on stage without falling into the audience. I guess she could have gotten this ability from the Shirley Temple side of the family, but there’s a little more pelvis action in there than Little Miss Marker ever displayed. I am telling you, and most of our friends would be happy to attest, that there is not a smidgen of rhythm in Cap’n Firepants or me. Unless we’re drunk.

Ashton Kucher – Cap’n Firepants and I were both major geeks in school. I was labelled Four Eyes (so original) and the Cap’n won’t even tell me what humiliations he suffered. Not so with Dimples. Dimples wears glasses and suddenly it becomes a fashion trend. We don’t have to make plans for the weekend because her friends schedule every minute. She charms everyone she meets, and doesn’t even know it.

She does well in school, sings like a bird, laughs at herself if she makes an embarrassing mistake and decides, on her own volition, that she would like to go to bed earlier so she can get more sleep.

Somewhere out there is a family with an eight year old who is perpetually grumpy, stumbles around in her coke bottle glasses as she hunts for the Nancy Drew book she will spend the weekend reading alone in her room, and makes Eeyore look like an optimist.

I’m sorry, Biological Producers of Dimples, that you got stuck with the miniature version of Cap’n Firepants and me. You’re probably trying to get your money back on the Designer Baby you ordered.

Good luck with that.