It's been a
fairly busy month for me!
Almost all
of my service calls have been relatively local and so I have been driving
instead of flying. I've made all of
these trips in ugly mode for a host of reasons – I’m trying to cut my wife some slack, it's too damned hot, and I'm
not sure that I entirely trust my poor old F150 anymore because she has over
165,000 miles on her. Risking a breakdown in the heat in boy mode is one thing,
but I wasn't willing to risk getting stranded out in the heat while "dressed"!
I bought a
new wig several months ago because the two that I have worn for years are both
showing their age and starting to look pretty rough. This is a lot more
traumatic to me than you might think! I have been unable to find hair that
looks exactly like my two favorites, and this is a problem because let's face
it, hair is a
major part of making or
breaking my confidence. After purchasing several wigs online just to discover
that they were nowhere as close to my originals as I wanted, I did at last find
one that I thought might work for me and purchased it. Now my problem became
getting the darn thing trimmed to fit and flatter, because with my being on the
road non-stop, I just couldn't get an appointment that I could make. I wanted
to get it trimmed by
Beth Boy'e because she is both, one of us
and and does a
freaking awesome job with hair, but I was a victim of her success! She, and her
salon are so popular that she is a booked at least a month in advance, and
given the nature of my job, it is impossible to predict where I will be a month
from now. We traded lots of emails, with my explaining to her why I was such a
pain in the ass when it came to scheduling, and ultimately she agreed to let me
know if she ever had a cancellation or free hour, and I would do my damnedest to
get there if I were not on the road. So there my new wig sat, in the closet,
month after month. . . .
I was working
down in Pasadena Texas, south east of Houston last week, when I received an
email from Beth saying that she had a little time free at 730pm if I could get
there. Of course several thoughts went through my head at that point - how
awesome it was of her to be willing to work so late to take care of me, and oh
shit - how can I try and get done with my customer in time to make the three or
four hour drive back up to Austin in time to make the appointment?!
At first, I
was depressed as hell because I didn't think that I could possibly make it, and
I even sent her an email saying so. Later that day though, the universe took
pity on me, and I finished with my customer early enough to head out with a
realistic hope of being there on time. I sent lots of frantic emails and
voicemails to Beth, pleading with her to go ahead and schedule me in, and then
I entered the Houston rush hour madness.
When I
arrived at "
Salon Muse" that night in boy mode, I was
carrying four wigs - the two that I was trying to replicate or replace, the one
I had recently purchased, and also one I had bought quite a while ago, but was
unhappy with because it looks too much like a wig. The short and flippy wig she
was familiar with, because I had bought it from her several years ago. It had
gone obsolete shortly after I bought it though and so I had been unable to find
a replacement when it started to wear out. Imagine my surprise when she told me
that she actually had one! It was darker than mine, but I really thought it
would look ok on me, and she made me a hell of a deal, so I swiped it!
The irony
is, she was thoroughly unimpressed with the wig that I had brought for her to
trim, and told me that the OTHER wig I had brought (Henry Margu) was a much
better wig. She took a look at it, and explained that the reason it looked so
much like a wig, was the tight curls all over it, and she then showed me that
by washing it in very hot water, I could get those curls to relax. So - I
walked in with one wig to trim, and walked out with three that I was thrilled
with!
So as long
as we are at this point in the story, I'll give a shout out to
Beth Boy'e and"Salon Muse", because she really does a fantastic job. If you want
your hair to look absolutely real and fashionably modern, you really should
give her a call. In fact, it was
a makeover by her many years ago that gave me
the confidence to actually head out into the world and travel pretty, because
she taught me how to achieve a believable and acceptable look for myself.
The next day
was Friday and the start of a three day weekend, and so we had arranged to go
and spend the weekend at the Galveston beach with my wife's brother and his
family, and with my wifes sister and her family. I'm telling you, you have
never been exhausted until you try to wrangle three families, and five children
at the beach! Our little adventure got
off to a REALLY rocky start too!
At my
sister-in-laws suggestion, we had all pitched in and rented a house near the
beach for the weekend. With the three families splitting the bill, it was about
the same as a hotel would have cost, and so didn't seem like too bad of an
idea. You can guess how thrilled we were though, when the couple in the house
next to us was in the middle of a shouting match when we arrived and were
unpacking our children and supplies. I opened the drivers door just in time to
hear the man shout drunkenly to the woman "I work HARD and I'm sick of paying
your F'ing bills!" Oh boy . . .
That wasn't
the worst of our rough start though. Nope, not by a long shot! The next morning
I was awakened to the sound of my wife and sister-in-law shouting out the names
of all three girls and within seconds I realized from their tones that they
were not shouting at them but for them! The two oldest girls were only
eight, and the youngest was five. Knowing how paranoid my wife is about never
loosing sight of our children, the very concept that we were in a strange city
and the children were so far out of sight that no one knew exactly where they
were, scared the hell outta me.
When I got
to the front door, my wife and her sister both had the look of terror in their
eyes. . .
"What's
going on?" I asked my wife.
"They're
gone!"
"What
do you mean 'they're gone'?!" I asked.
"A
minute ago, the girls were all sitting on the balcony and now they're gone! The
gate is wide open and her shoes are still on the stairs, and she is GONE!"
my poor wire almost sobbed.
You have to
understand - my wife is the most cautious person that you will ever meet when
it comes to keeping track of our children. If she lets one of our children out of
the door to be with me when I am working on a car, she always makes it a point
to get a verbal response from me, almost like the captain of a ship a giving
over the CON.
More or less
"YOU have the children, got it?!" followed closely by my
acknowledgement "Yes ma'am, I acknowledge that I have the children,
aye!"
The very
thought that my daughter and nieces had managed to leave the yard and get out
of sight was just utterly foreign to me.
Without
another word, my wife headed off in one direction, her sister in another, and I
went my own way, shouting out their names and stopping everyone that I passed.
Part of me felt like the lowest thing in the world asking people "Have you
seen three little girls?" while holding out my hand about waist high. All
of them gave me a look that was part pity and part disgust, because after all,
what kind of person looses sight of three little girls? They all assured me
that they had not seen them. I canvased all of the stores and shops that were
open, but so early in the morning there were few people out and about, and in
about ten minutes I started to feel real dread - the fear that my little girl
might not have just stepped a few feet out of our sight for the first time in
her life, but that she might indeed be gone.
This place
was a tourist trap, with thousands of people coming and going every day, and I
was starting to realize that there was very little hope that the police would
find them if they were taken intentionally.
With the very real thought in my head that my daughter might even now be
in some pedophiles car speeding off of the island, I called my wife.
"Have
they come back yet?"
"No. .
. " she almost cried.
"All
right, call the cops and call them now. I've looked down all of the streets and
talked to everyone I saw, and no one has seen them." I told her, on the
verge of crying my darn self.
"We
already did and they're on the way."
I kept
calling out their names as I made my way back to the rental house. . .
You know, if
you haven't been through it, you just can't imagine the relief that swept over
me as I saw my OTHER sister-in-law walking toward the house with all three
girls in tow. None of us had known that
she was even awake, let alone had our children with her. I guess she had walked
out on the balcony and the girls asked her to walk them across the street to
the beach, and being the cool aunt that she was, she obliged. It had never
occurred to her that we might not realize that she had the girls with her, and
SHE cried when she realized what we had all just gone through.
As you can
imagine, our children all received a great deal of attention for the rest of
the weekend, and never got more than five or ten feet away from us at any
moment . . .
Tuesday
morning I was sitting in my cubicle, sun burnt and bored, when I received a
call from one of my very favorite customers in Detroit. This lady has been
working on Infrared Mass Specs longer than I have, and she was one of my very
first solo service calls many years back. At that time, she knew far more about
my instrument than I did, but she was patient and kind with me, and I will
never forget her for that. In the many years since then, I have learned to hold
my own with her, but I sure couldn't back then on that first service call to
her. Anyway, she was having problems that she couldn't address, and so she
wanted a service call. That was fine by me, because I can't stand siting in my
office, and so the following morning I was off to Detroit via Charlotte NC.
It has
probably already occurred to you that the democratic national convention was
taking place in Charlotte at the time, but there wasn't much to be done about
it, and so off I went. The only problem that the DNC caused me is that our
plane was forced to sit on the runway for almost thirty minutes after landing
before it was allowed to taxi up to the gate. Since my connection layover was
only for fifty minutes as scheduled, that meant that I once again had the
pleasure of sprinting from one end of the Charlotte airport to the other. This
little voice kept whispering in the back of my head as I huffed and puffed my
way across the airport "aren't you glad that you were too tired and
sunburned to fly pretty?!"
I put in a
very long work day the following day, but I pretty much expected that. Like I
said, this customer knows her stuff pretty well, so if she is going to call me
in, it is going to be a tough one by definition.
When it came
time to fly home, I was stunned to realize that I was honestly scared at the
thought of flying pretty. I've been doing it for years now, and know damned
good and well that there is nothing to worry about, but still I was filled with
fear at the idea and my head was filled with all of those nasty thoughts and
doubts.
"But
you're old and wrinkled now - what's the point?"
"You
look terrible! Everyone will know that you are a male!"
"You're
too fat and will look like shit in every outfit you brought. You should just
cowboy up and fly like a guy!"
"Your
wife hates it that you do this. You really should stop for her!"
Sigh . . .
I sat there
looking at the outfits and wigs that I had brought, and absolutely could not
decide
if I should fly pretty, and if
so, what outfit would make me look less like a fat old cow. I actually took a
photo of all three outfits and put it on Facebook, asking for opinions, of
which there was no shortage.
About a half an hour later, dozens of people were
suggesting one particular outfit with a top that I had never worn before, and
so I went and tried it on. With my confidence already at rock bottom, I was
seriously bummed when I saw that this cute red top was most definitely
straining at the buttons that go across the cleavage. I
had tried this top on in the store before I bought it, but I was in
boy mode at the time and with no boobs! It fit just fine then, but throw a pair
of breasts in there, and this top had just hit the "no fly" zone.
Damn . . .
With plan A
shot all to hell, I went with the outfit that I had originally intended to wear
- a blue skirt with a very girly blue and white blouse. I was more than a
little relieved to see that it at least fit me well!
Once I got
my makeup on, I tried on one of the new wigs that had just bought from Salon
Muse:
This one is
the perfect color, but flatter than I would normally have considered. I had
gone ahead and bought it though for three reasons:
1 - I
thought the color was perfect
3 - Beth
made me one hell of a good deal on it!
At first I
wasn't thrilled with it, but the more I messed with it, the more that I thought
that it just might work! I had even made up my mind to go ahead and wear it for
the day, but decided to go ahead and see how I looked in the new short and
flippy wig that I had also got that night:
This one is the same model as the
short hair that I have worn for years, but it is quite a bit darker, and so I
had feared that it might not look right on me. I was filled with relief when I
started messing with it though, because in the end I thought it looked
terrific! I've always loved the look of a girl with bright blue eyes and dark
hair, and I think that this wig almost gives me that look. No question about it
- I was gonna wear this one today!
I was just
overjoyed (NOT!) when I handed the car in at Avis that morning and the lady there
asked “How was the car sir?”
POOF –
there went the confidence right out the starting gate.. .
Inside the
airport, I was tickled to see one of the TSA inspectors apparently has a sense
of humor, and was wearing a kind of silly hat and outfit, so I snuck a photo of
him.
“Awesome
hat!” I told him with a grin as I walked by him. He just grinned back at me and
said “Thank you!”
After I had
landed in Charlotte, I was surfing the internet while I waited for my
connecting flight and was surprised when I received a short email from someone that
I didn't know through one of the forums that I spend time at.
“You looked
very lovely this morning if you were the one flying pretty.”
I couldn't
help but grin, wondering who this person was and where they had been when I
went through there that morning. It’s a darn shame that they hadn't said
something though, because we could have chatted for a moment or two! Of course
I already know that I wouldn’t get along with this person, because they have
already shot their credibility all to
hell with that fib!
