My Hair Dilemma

I recently passed my 47th birthday. It didn't seem like a monumental day (it's not like I crossed over into a new demographic category; now THAT'S traumatizing). My family made it special for me, but other than that, it was just another day. I don't know how I got to this age. I mean, I feel like I've only been on this planet for 25, maybe 27 years.

I am having a problem though. My natural hair color has turned almost totally grey (or white or silver, I'm not sure which). Of course, I have spent a small fortune over the past 15 years to color my hair -- sometimes for my own amusement (wonder what I'd look like blonde) and, lately, for far more practical reasons: to hide the grey.

I've tried highlights on a dark base, highlights on a light base, light colored hair, dark colored hair. Nothing actually hides the grey.

I read with interest recently about Anne Kreamer's new book, Going Grey - What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity and Everything Else That Really Matters. Kreamer calculated that she had spent $65,000 over twenty years coloring her grey hair. She became empowered and went au naturel, so to speak. Her experience not only changed her life, but changed her perspective on life, too.

I'm not ready to go full-out grey YET but I think I'm ready to ease into it. So I've been seeking a colorist who will highlight my hair GREY. It seems the world has not yet caught up with us boomers. Every person, product, place assumes I want to COVER MY GREY. But that's not what I want to do. I want someone to artfully ADD grey to my hair so that as my roots grow in they truly do blend in. I want platinum and silver and white streaks.

All of my internet searches return hundreds of thousands of sites with advice on covering up the grey, but nowhere can I find a product or specialist to GIVE ME MY GREY! I read a couple of cases where women were complaining about a stylist who had botched a coloring job and their hair turned out grey. I followed those links in the hopes that they would include the failed color formula. I was hoping to be able to present it to my stylist and ask for the same results.

Attention L'oreal, Clairol, Garnier, Goldwell.... if you make hair color, please start marketing permanent shades and highlights for the boomer market. I'll be your first customer!

Our Own Little Darwin Award Nominee

Yesterday morning when we awoke, the light on our phone was flashing, indicating that there was a message waiting on our answering service. It is our custom to look at the call display before checking the messages; it's like a sneak peek to see who may be thinking about us. More often than not, call display shows Unknown Name Unknown Number, in which case we may not check the message for a few hours. After all, everyone we know has a name.

Yesterday's call display showed the caller's very Distinctive First and Last Names and telephone number. Funny thing, the caller left a message around 2:30 in the morning, yet none of us had heard the phone ring.

Finally, just before 4 p.m., we checked the messages. We were all a little shocked to hear a threatening voice warning us: "Your time has come to an end. I will be taking your life tomorrow at 6 p.m. (Evil laugh.) Goodbye."

Usually, you'd feel threatened hearing a message like that, but one could just make out the sounds of a young teen laughing in the background. It sounded like a prank call. I mean, who says "You'll by dead by 6 PEE-EM tomorrow." If I call you about a date, I may say something like "I'll see you at 2 o'clock tomorrow." I frequently use "p.m." when writing, but I can't even imagine using it in conversation. I thought it was polite of him to say the formal "Goodbye" instead of just hanging up, like I guess I'd expect serial killers would.

We didn't take it too seriously as an actual threat to our safety, but we did want to report it to the police. While waiting for the police to come, I thought I'd do a reverse look-up on the number. It turns out the number is a local cell phone.

I then used Canada411 and found four local families with the same Distinctive Surname. I used Mapquest to identify one of the streets as being in our neighbourhood.

In a moment of inspiration, I decided to look up the name on Facebook. Bingo! There he was. Mr. Distinctive First Name and Last Name, a student at a local high school.

Busted!

The police officer was incredibly impressed with what he called "my investigation." I told him that I am the Empress of all Google searches. He complained that the police don't have access to Facebook as part of their investigative resources. Facebook is blocked on police computers.

Now you could hardly call this an "investigation." In total, the entire process took less than ten minutes.

The police will be making a visit to the young man's school and then speaking with his parents. Kids need to know that there are consequences to their seemingly 'fun' and 'innocent' pranks.

We're all safe, we think. As for me, I've offered to do online research for the regional police on a pay-per-search basis. After all, my first "investigation" appears to be successful.


Twenty minutes after writing this, we heard back from the police officer. It seems Mr. Distinctive First and Last Name was known to police. The officer had already been to his home and spoken to the kid and his parents. The cop seems to have warned him that he's lucky we're such good people and don't want to press charges, otherwise, he'd be spending the night in jail waiting to see a justice of the peace tomorrow morning. From what the officer told me, I'm pretty sure we won't be hearing from the kid again.