A Hair Threatening Ordeal

It began as an innocent shopping trip without my children, but quickly turned into a hair threatening ordeal.

I set off on my night of freedom, and decided I wanted to go to Ross to check out some home décor items…I’m a sucker for cheap, cute things.  (Have you seen my husband? Buh dunn chhh….) 

I started loading my cart up with odd shaped and size home décor items, excited to get them home.  That was my first mistake.

After getting my fill of shopping, I happily pushed my cart of treasures up to the check stand and excitedly handed them over for the cashier to ring me up.  I was feeling happy with her remarks of, “Oh, cute” and, “Ooohhh…I like that.”  She was totally feeding my need to feel awesome.  She casually asked me a few times if I wanted certain things in a bag or not.  I told her no, I have plenty of plastic bags at my house.  That was my second mistake.

I put all my goodies back in the cart and headed for the door…

All the items I had purchased...yes the orange caddy is part of it.

Then everything started to un-ravel.

An employee stopped me, “Oh, the cart won’t go out the door.  It sets off an alarm.”

I kind of stood there blinking like a deer in the headlights as I processed this information. 

I can’t take my cart – that was full of goodies - out to the car…and I didn’t have the lady put things in bags for me.

So I started – extremely awkwardly – loading my arms up, hanging an art piece off a pinky nail here, hooking my thumb through a little opening in a piece of wall art here, balancing a vase on my pointer finger on the other hand and balancing a metal tree on my elbow pit (yes…I call it an elbow pit) while I grasped the 2 bags that I did have with my middle and ring finger.  It was a sight to behold.

Things balanced in right arm

Things balanced in left arm

I had my items precariously balanced just perfect, and felt I had achieved success.  I went for the door.

Oh Ross – my dear friend – why on earth do you not have automatic doors?

The awkwardness continued as I then had to carefully turn around and use my back side to push the door open while trying to maintain my balanced items, and keep them from crashing to the floor.  I have a new found empathy for a pinball, as this is how I felt at this moment trying to escape the door.  I would get it open a little, and something I was holding would get stuck so the door would hit me in the bum and push me back a little, it was great.  All the while, the employees stood and watched.  What joy they must have been experiencing. 

I finally broke free of the death trap with all my items still in hand and unbroken. 

Wahoo!

It was then I realized it was raining…oh yes…raining in St. George.

That put a damper on things (oh yeah…I’m on a roll!)

The next realization I had was that my car keys were still in my purse…which was covered in all my balanced items.  So I got over to my car and very carefully set the things in my right arm on the ground so I could fish my keys out. 

Feeling like I just climbed Mt. Everest, I rejoiced that I had made it this far.

And then it happened.

I got the back of my car open and went to set the things in my left arm down, when I felt a pull on my head.

Hmm….that’s strange.

It was then I realized that in all my precarious shenanigans, my sweet, long, curly hair which I have a love/hate relationship for had completely wrapped and tangled itself around one of the decorations I was holding.

The culprit

I thought, “No biggy…I’ll just tug a little and it’ll release”.

Boy was I wrong.  This was not a simple tangled hair.  My hair and the decoration had become one.

I was trapped.

As I tried getting the other items carefully out of my arm (still balancing the metal tree in my elbow pit), my hair was being pulled harder and harder.  This 5 pound item was dangling from about 10 strands of my hair, all the while blocking me from being able to set anything else down.  My hair is just long enough that the metal flowers kept swinging back and forth, hitting me in the chest and stomach, but not long enough for me to be able to rest the flower on the bumper of my car in order to maneuver.

Finally I managed to get the things into the back of the car, after a good 5 minutes of fighting and turning and trying different angles with my hair caught in a death match with a flowery decoration…all the while standing in the rain.

I was able to turn the decoration around to assess the damage…as up to this point, the part that was fused to my hair was faced away from me, so I couldn’t see what was going on. 

I kid you not - I could not see where the decoration ended and my hair began.  I tried to gently untangle the hair.  No use.  I tried to pull a little more.  No go.  I even tried to vigorously rip the hair out.  No success.  I than began wracking my brain – hoping for some survival instincts to kick in.  Did I have nail clippers in my purse that I could cut my hair out?  It was a moment of desperation.  At this point I felt I was going to have to sacrifice my hair to this blasted flowery display.  But being a mother of small children, I have a child proof purse and there was nothing sharp.  That bag of animal crackers wasn't going to save me now.

I was about to give up and hop in the front seat with the flowery monster still attached to my head and just go home to get some scissors or assistance from my husband. 

I decided to take a deep breath and try one more time to untangle my hair.

FINALLY I was free, but lost a big chunk of hair in the process…and a little dignity too.  

Hair attached to the flower

I didn’t dare look around to see if anyone witnessed what had just happened…because I didn’t need to know.

I decided since I had been victorious over the flowers, I needed to reward myself with some peanut butter M&M’s and went into the next store over.  

I got home and Marty commented, “That’s a big bag of M&M’s” to which I yelled, “You have no idea what I’ve been through!”

Okay…that part isn’t true.  But those M&M’s did make me feel better.

What is the lesson we can learn from my experience?

DON’T GO TO ROSS…unless you have someone with you to laugh at your ridiculousness.