Parallax

Knock at the door, just now. Fancible Range Rover, without so much as a speck of mud in its heavy-tread tires, sitting in my driveway. I took Riley's collar in my hand and opened the door to find a somewhat roundish, friendly-looking, polite older man standing on my porch. Like his vehicle (and Paul's grandfather) he was very clean. His shirt bore the logo of a roofing company.

The Clean Man: "Do you know who owns the land behind your home?"

Indi: "I... really, you know, I have no idea. I mean. People do. Own it."

Riley, meanwhile, stuck her head out the door.

Riley: "OHAI. DID YOU BRING COOKIES?"

Indi: "But I don't know who they are."

The Clean Man: "Thank you. Didn't mean to disturb you."

Riley: "DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE A HAMSTER?"

Indi: "You know, there's the - the, uh - the county property appraiser, I think you can look it up on their website. And find out who owns it, if you're curious."

The Clean Man: "Thank you!"

Riley: "DID YOU BRING ME A HAMSTER? OR COOKIES?"

Indi: "If you find them, tell them to spray for mosquitoes? I beg you."

The Clean Man: *chuckle* "Sure thing. Bye now!"

Riley: "WHAT IS WITH PEOPLE COMING HERE AND NOT GIVING ME THINGS?"

I will now go back to my really cute movie about evil bunnies.

One Eyed Jack: "WILL YE LOUSY ROUSTABOUTS PIPE DOWN? SOME OF US ARE TRYIN' TA SLEEP ON OUR HOARDS!"

There's a little yellow and green jar on my desk and it is GLARING at me in a way I've only seen from Geiger's Alien and possibly the lens of HAL9000. It is angry because I don't know what to do with it, and during its infancy and childhood in the factory, all the machines were telling it that it would make some sassy hipster pretty, but instead it's stuck with me. It is unhappy head paste. It feels like it has no purpose. I'm not sure I disagree.

I did figure one thing out. They call it product because English is behind the times and there is not one word that encompasses "sprays and pastes and weird jars of goo that are as liquidy as Hasek's spine and stuff that is magical on anyone's head but Indi's, and even though it smells delicious you really really should not eat it." Which I haven't, by the way, but I want to. I think maybe I'll email Garnier and tell them they need to come out with a line of gum or candies or something.

I let Riley smell it to see if it was just me that thought it smelled like food, and it's not. She went a little drooly. She didn't taste it though. Neither have I! We're both learning, see?

If you want to know about the mating habits of bonobo monkeys, or about the Bolts' Russian prospects, I'm your girl. Hair product? Not a clue. And suddenly this is a very big problem, because now my hair is short, and I have learned that the one thing you do not do to hair with a malevolent mind of its own is cut it off, because IT GETS VERY ANGRY WITH YOU. And see, I cut it off, because I was tired of the bottom foot or so of it tangling if I looked at it wrong, or if I went outside, or if I breathed or something. Also, I was tired of not doing anything with it ever but putting it in buns and securing them with clips or chopsticks, because in Florida it is too hot to have hair. But now the surviving hair is making this desperate grab for freedom, and it's slipping free of its shackles (by which I mean ponytail holders) and if I move my head it goes sliding all over everywhere so I look like a shiny and confused sheepdog. I figured it would do its usual tangly thing, just shorter. I was so very wrong. It's rocking in the free world that is my head. I decided this had to stop.

So I did what I usually do, and asked my friends for advice. I was told a bunch of things about defining and separating and lift (and I thought all of that had to do with making bras fit right) and the one thing I needed was, like, a description, so I could go to a store and pick the bottle that said X or Y or Z but everyone said different things. Then Colby took me to the store and I sort of poked around and I got this angry jar of stuff because at that point it was something like four in the morning and out of all the advice (which is so wasted on me) the only thing I could remember was "texture paste."

I came home and I looked at the Garnier website (it's Garnier, what I got) and it had videos that I think were supposed to be helpful, but by the time these people were done putting the things in their hair, they looked like Cyndi Lauper and/or Replicants, so I was a little scared. I looked at the jar again, and some nice person had seen fit to put instructions on it, so I took off my glasses and went into the bathroom and tried to do what the jar said to do. That didn't work either, because my hair is really secretly some sort of malevolent life-force that's decided to live in my head and grow out of it. So I rubbed the paste over my hands and tried to work it into my hair and it DISAPPEARED. My hair looked exactly the same, except that the fuzzy frizzy fly-away bits weren't flying away anymore, and I smelled like candy. I put more in and my hair ate that too, without a trace. Then I put MORE in and I wound up with this one handful of hair that was sort of sticky, and as much as I tried I could not work the stuff through onto the rest of my head. It wouldn't go. The instructions said I should do that, but I tell you, they lie because it was flatly impossible. My hair was all OM NOM NOM TASTES LIKE DELICIOUSNESS GIVE MORE but I ignored its death threats and put the jar back on my desk and then went to watch videos of goalie fights because that, at least, is something I understand.

This morning I asked Terri about it and she suggested putting the stuff in when it's damp. I'm not entirely sure about that, but it might work better, because my hair is so absorbent I might as well be growing a towel out of my scalp (seriously, I have to wring it out when it is wet, even now that it's short) and maybe if it's already sucked up all the water it can hold it might not eat the paste too. She's convinced I can learn this, and she assured me it just takes lots of practice and mistakes, and all I wanted to ask her was how she can see the back of her head to know if she's doing it right, because I can't hold up a mirror to look when both of my hands are covered in Product the consistency of cream cheese. The mirror would fall out and shatter all over my bare feet and then the angry jar would have its revenge and we cannot have that because I am unlucky enough already without doing things like breaking mirrors.

So when I take my shower in a little bit I'll try putting more of this goo in, which should be interesting because it seriously is as thick as cream cheese and I don't know how to spread stuff like that without a knife, and I know better than to put knives near my head, so I'm still not sure how this will work. But I'll try, damn it! Just promise that if my alien hair takes over completely you will put it down before it has the chance to infest someone else. I wouldn't wish this stuff on anyone other than political officials.

In the meantime, have my favorite hockey fight ever, because hockey is easier to understand than hairstyling.