Again, I am considering finally giving in to 1996 by finally buying a cell phone. * It is something I consider every now and again. Only, if I finally go through with it this time you are not going to like it because I have decided whenever you call and ask, �so, where are you?� My answer, no matter what, will always, always be:
�Ya know. At tha club.�
And the stock-no-matter-what answer for whenever you ask what I am doing?
�Perpetrating.�
I mean, I am on my cell* for crying aloud.
* Wireless, whatever.
Speaking of ownership, I can�t imagine anything more boring than an entry filled with a laundry list of Shit You Bought Over the Weekend (you know, just wear a sign that says, �I have nothing better to do with my free time than CONSUME�) but over the weekend I was at Target looking for some of my usual hair dye only to find they were out. Totally out.
Which is not unusual, I use a popular reddish-color that usually sells out pretty quickly but this time not only were they out of my color � there was not one single box of that brand (Clairol semi-permanent yeah, I know you care) on any shelf anywhere. Just a big huge void of empty where it all should have been.
Sadly, I wandered on.
And right around the corner on the sale end cap, were all the remaining boxes of my brand hair dye. ALL of it. All marked down! Down! Down! All for quick sale!
And you know what marked down for quick sale means, right? The color I�ve used for like, a thousand years now, the only color that doesn�t make me look like a rinsed blue-hair! is going to be discontinued!
Discontinued! So I started to dig (a little more desperately than I would like to admit) through the bounty of boxes until I found each and every last of my color.
And that worked out okay, because I found like, two boxes. Until I noticed another, much higher, much more beyond my reach shelf filled with more boxes of the stuff so, yeah, I did what I had to do, which was totally scale the shelves like Everest until I was high enough to dig through the remaining goods and find the sole surviving box and whew, vanity disaster avoided.
Until I found out today, Clairol was not actually discontinuing the stuff; that product is actually its best seller, so they were just you know, making way for the new and redesigned soon-to-be-released packaging by getting rid of all the old, tired packaging.
Once again, vanity kicks self-respect�s ass. Turns out I am just a big consumer chump as the rest of �em.
I can only imagine what the Target security tapes look like.
FILE UNDER: MORE INFORMATION YOU DID NOT ASK FOR **
Also on the ann-frank line-up for spring (you know, besides fabulous hair): swimming!
I do not wish to have anything to do with the Bally�s Nation of Fitness so I went ahead and joined the good old fashioned Young Men�s Christian Association.
You know � it�s fun to stay at the � never mind. It�s close. They have a pool. And when it comes to exercise, my usual routine (you know, power walking and beer lifting) has become tired. So, I thought I�d switch it up a bit. And since swimming is really the only exercise I can tolerate for long periods of time, and since I do not live in Melrose Place (you know, they have the centerpiece pool that was used like, never) and since it�s right up the street, I thought I�d give it a try.
And since it�s you know, The YMCA, it�s totally old school.
Forget rows and rows of elliptical machines and super-powered Stairmasters in front of windows and mirrors for those spandex-ed hot bodies who like to see and be seen! They have like, cold meat lockers, where you can go throw down in a head band and baggy gray sweat pants and get all bloody-knuckled punches on a side of beef like Rocky!
Okay, maybe not. But there is a well-chlorined pool. Which totally fits into my plan. You know, my plan to increase my upper and lower body strength as well as my lung capacity so I can effortlessly climb cheap retail shelves and take bigger, more productive bong hits?
I am never without a plan.
The one concern I have about The Swimming (I mean, besides the swim suit and all of the cliched self-loathing that goes along with it) is the fact that since I dye my hair, I need to be kind of careful with that.
I mean, besides your normally drying out, hair damage, blah blah blah there is the simple fact that whenever I wash my hair after coloring it, the red dye streams and streams out in the water for at least a week.
So, I�ve bought a swim cap. And yes, I do look exactly like that old lady you�ve always seen doing laps in her cap, granny-suit and goggles. Only, I couldn�t find a cap with jaunty flowers sticking out in every direction, so I had to settle for the latex-yes-I-feel-like-a-big-penis-head kind of swim cap.
Because the last thing I need is to jump into the pool, start swimming and have a red trail of dye following me until some 16 year old lifeguard jumps in after me, blowing a whistle and yelling, �Head wound! We�ve got a head wound! Somebody call 911!�
So: there�s always Ebay and there�s always time, and eventually that flowery swim cap will be mine. Because honestly, if you are going to wear the look, I say wear it.
GET OUT OF THE GODDAMN SHALLOW END AND QUIT TALKING ABOUT YOUR HAIR, ANN-FRANK**
Yes, I realize there is a primary election to participate in tomorrow and while I already have a Dem for Senate in mind, Illinois folk please send your picks*** to subject line: OH NO YOU DIDN�T! care of: ann-frank@diaryland.com.
** title scheme totally copped from other diarists for lack of transitional imagination of my own
***�picks� nice to see I am treating politics like a NCAA bracket, eh?