Rookie

Ruby

I wanted to color my hair this week, but I’m broke, and I don’t know how to do it myself. I asked Claudia, the owner of the salon I go to, how much it would cost to dye it. She said I could babysit in exchange for getting my hair done. Here’s a tip: barter! It will usually pay off somehow, especially if you know the person you’re bartering with.

I actually had fun babysitting Saigon, Claudia’s adorable daughter. We had a bunch of fun:
1. She didn’t want to go to the potty, so I showed her the music video for Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time,” telling her that he was singing “potty” instead of “party.” She enjoyed it very much. (It didn’t work.)
2. She was one of the few children I met who actually did what Dora the Explorer told her to on TV: when Dora needed help jumping up and down or finding Swiper the Fox in a bush, Saigon would always jump or point to the corner of the screen where a tail could be seen behind a branch. Cutest. Thing. Ever.
3. She refused to eat lunch, but instead ate the frosting off of two doughnuts with a tiny “princess fork” for fruit salad and cheese and stuff.
It was probably the best deal I will ever make—in exchange for the fun I had with Saigon, I got to get my hair done!

I didn’t really know what color I wanted until I sat down in the twirly hairdressing chair. Then I impulsively told Claudia I wanted purple tips, but almost all the way up to my roots. So yeah, not really tips—more like everything except the very top and my bangs. And that’s what I got: the most beautiful shade of violet you’ll ever see in your life, still shiny and healthy because I didn’t use bleach.

But now I’m kind of regretting it. I mean, the color is great, but I think I need to dye the rest of my hair purple now, because deep violet and blonde don’t look great together on me. But: I’m scared to do my whole head. What if it doesn’t go back to its natural color EVER? Also, I don’t know why I chose purple, because I don’t know if it will match anything I wear. My head suddenly feels so out of place with the rest of me. I couldn’t bear to chop it off, though, and the color is too gorgeous to re-dye. To add to my remorse, my father wasn’t very happy about the results—he thought I dyed too much of my hair.

OK but: now that I’ve written all of my feelings about this new hair color down, I can feel them changing. I’m feeling the regrets slip away. After all, I had fun babysitting Saigon, I got my hair dyed for free, it’s a great color, and I never liked being blonde anyway. Anyway, hair dyeing is all about trial and error until you find something perfect. So, in conclusion, yay! I have purple hair.

Whaddya think?