“Sum1 just told me ur bf is out wif sum super skanky blond,” I read through the glow of my cell phone screen.  I hate texting abbreviations.  Most of the time these messages send me straight to Google to research what the kids are saying, the meaning of this one was pretty clear “your boyfriend is out with some super skanky blonde”.  I was devastated. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut and someone was smothering my face with a pillow pet.  Super skanky blonde? Really? This is what it all comes down to? Harsh.  With everything that is going on in my life, I guess I just didn’t realize…this is all my fault.  I should have listened to the advice, should have done some things different. I replied “Ha! Good one. Thanks for your concern, but it’s not what it looks like,”. I was trying to save face…and improper spelling makes me go ape-shit. Now I’m stuck wondering.  Where do I go from here?

It all started a few weeks ago, I began to notice that I was being treated differently.  Even though I was aware that I was being handled with kit gloves, I wasn’t really sure of the reasoning behind it.  People have been speaking very slowly to me and smiling more.  Not people that know me well, but the regular strangers I come in contact with on my daily travels.  You may be saying to yourself “Golly, that’s weird. Why would that happen?  Did you have an accident, Scarp? A head injury, maybe?” Or you could be saying “This isn’t Mayberry.  I don’t used the word “golly”.  Quit trying to put words in my mouth, you pushy bitch…and get to the friggin’ point.” Either way, I appreciate you reading up until this point, so I will explain.  I have accidentally, with the help of a very well-meaning beautician friend, bleached my hair platinum blonde.  I say accidentally, because we were going for a golden tone.  What we got was…um…a lovely hue of safety cone orange.  Apparently, the only way to fix this…is to cry…and then add more highlights. My boyfriend, who initially tried to sway me away from the at-home hair coloring, was kind enough not to say “I told you so, go put a hat on”.

I am the super skank that he is parading around town, the nerve of me.  Evidently people don’t spend a lot of time looking at my face, I’m just hair and boobs with feet.  We were at a bar on Friday night (shocking, I know) and one of the regular lady customers, who is usually very friendly, kept giving us the stink eye.  I was half-heartedly trying to put together a viable scenario that might explain her behavior.  It was only half-hearted…because, as I have mentioned before, I don’t particularly care what people think of me anymore. At some point during the evening she bumped into me.  It was one of those accidental/on purpose collisions…at first she was defensive…and then her demeanor changed.  “Oh my God! I didn’t know you were you!” she apologized…”that’s why I was giving you a dirty look, I was just about to come over and tell you that he has a girlfriend,”.  While I appreciate everyone looking out for the sanctity of my relationship, I wish they were more observant…and used friendlier words to describe my new look.

I was fair-haired before…even though my Gravitar says differently (Mom and Aunt Lois, a Gravitar is the picture thing that shows up on my blog).  It’s the only photo I have of myself where I’m not making a stupid and/or drunk face.  For the record, I’m not always drunk or making a strange expression…just when there’s a camera around.   I’ve been this blonde before, on purpose, but that was many Scarp’s ago.  I had nearly forgotten how this shade of hair color (or colour…if yer European) changes the way people interact with me.  At any moment, I expect someone to slap a helmet on my head and start calling me “Mongo” because I’m getting so much unsolicited help.  I actually had a stranger offer to help me work an ATM last week…an ATM! It’s not a complicated electronic device.  Later in the week, someone else ask me if I was Swedish because “he detected an accent”.  I was born in Ohio and I’ve lived in South Florida almost my entire life.  Remember your history lessons in elementary school when they talked about the Swedish sailing the ocean and conquering the great peninsula of Florida? Yeah, me neither.  I don’t have an accent…there is no European sounding indigenous tongue sprouting from the swamps down here…because everyone is from somewhere else.  If I did have an accent, it would probably be New York-ish in origin…because…that “somewhere else” where everyone else is from is usually one of the Five Boroughs.

This little foray into the world of the very blonde is proving to be abundantly entertaining. I’m probably going to keep it going for a while, at least until my roots start to show and a people realize that I’m a fraud.  Maybe I can transition unsolicited assistance into unsolicited cash donations. In the meanwhile, if you see my boyfriend out with a hooker-esque looking bimbo…don’t be alarmed.