A Slight Misunderstanding

I have ongoing hair color issues with my two oldest daughters. When I was their age nobody dyed their hair except middle-aged women who wanted to cover gray and people who thought blondes had more fun, but only their hair dresser knew for sure.

Christina and Kiah have been all over the color wheel. I know dying hair is a personal preference and I'm willing to admit I could be wrong but I believe God knew what He was doing when He chose their hair and eye color.

I know hair dye isn’t permanent like tattoos so I should bite my tongue and hope they’ll outgrow this stage.

I know it’s not a mortal sin to use hair dye but I can’t get used to it. Normal hair has such pretty natural highlights. I love when the sun shines on it and you see such a pretty spectrum. 

My girls say I'm a hypocrite because I dye my hair, but that’s different. I cover gray while they cover perfectly good color. I’m not quite ready to have gray hair yet so I cheat until I get used to being old.

I spotted an empty box of black hair dye in the garbage this week and knew one of them had been at it again.

Perhaps Christina who's currently blonde?

Or maybe black-haired Kiah who must be color-blind not to see that she looked prettier with the pretty light brown hair God gave her?

Or, gasp, was it the person behind Door number #3?

Yes folks, it was Erica. Sigh! Call me old-fashioned, call me controlling, out of touch, and opinionated, but I don’t like my sweet brown-haired gray-eyed daughter walking around with jet black hair. 

See what I mean. Look at her picture in the side bar and tell me she doesn't look better with her regular hair color.  (P.S. - I'll still be your friend if you don't agree with me)

Erica asked a friend from church how he liked her hair. When he said it looked nice, I barked, “Wrong answer.”

On Saturday, I stood beside Erica’s former ski instructor and watched her get on the chair lift with a snowboard.

He shook his head and said, “I see your daughter’s gone over to the dark side.”

Laboring under the delusion that others share my distaste for hair dye and automatically assuming he meant Erica’s black hair, I heaved a sigh and said, “Not with my blessing.”

He gave me an odd look and said, “Oh it’s not that bad. “At least she’s outside and getting fresh air and exercise.”

Huh? What’s dyed hair got to do with fresh air and exercise?

He changed the subject and I walked away to check on my other girls on the tubing hill. I mulled over his odd comment and tried to make sense of his response.

Then, as my girls like to quote from the movie Despicable Me, “Light Bulb.”

Erica had a hat on so her ski instructor couldn’t see her hair color. She usually wears a ski helmet anyway so he might not even know what her normal hair color is.

I finally realized he had merely commented that Erica had switched from skiing to snowboarding.

Boy did I feel stupid. That'll teach me to complain about my children to other people. Oh wait, that’s what I’m doing now. Okay, after this blog post I’ll quit complaining about my children to other people. Maybe.

I now know the safest response when you're not sure what someone is talking about is to say, "Yep."

I'm linking up with Rachel at Once Upon a Miracle for True Story Tuesday.  Rachel and her husband are great storytellers and will make it worth your while to hop over there to check them out.