I am now 30 years old.  With this advanced age, one would think that I would have learned a few life lessons.  Sure, I know how to balance a checkbook, know when to drive and when to get a ride, know when to fight and when to let it go, but I have yet to learn that there's a time to be cheap and there's a time to be lazy, but they should never go together.

Cheap and lazy separately are delightful indulgences that can create wealth, peace, happiness and a vast number of other things.

Together, they create problems, as evidenced by my latest hair style of white streaks and orange blotches, strangely reminiscent of my 7th grade year.

As I stared at the mirror at my self imposed monstrosity (I at least had a beauty school to blame for the early 90's snafu), I couldn't help but wonder how I had sunk so low to let this happen.

Now, it is not simply the highlighting at home that got me—I've been doing my own hair for a long time with somewhat acceptable results—it was the fact that I was crunched for time (aka, lazy) and got seduced by the "brand new innovative design that delivers foolproof professional results in half the time." 

Puh-lease. 

Yes the little nifty wand thing was cool looking.  In theory, I can see how it would aid in even spreading of bleach...I can even see how, again, theoretically, it could save me the time of pulling the little strands out of that sexy cap, but the reality was much different.

The first application left me with yellow highlighter stands with sexy orange roots.

Brooklyn said I looked like a zebra.

The second application spread out the yellow and added some orange streaks.

Momo upgraded me to "orange like my monkey," which, depending on the context, could possibly be considered a high compliment.

The third application evened things out, but left me looking a wee bit like a hooker or a stripper with a platinum top and a darker bottom.

Grandma screamed when she saw me.

The fourth application brought me scarily close to where I started, albeit 2 days and some odd dollars later.

While I did get to practice coming up with a witty back story to why my hair was so horrid including mid-life yearnings for junior high and a girl crush on T-Boz, I basically was screwed by my cheapness and my laziness (not to mention my rehab needing addiction to all things commercially driven, especially when involving big shiny letters..). 

What I have learned through this experience (plus a mini lecture from my beloved on how there comes to be a certain age where you just don't do this to yourself anymore...I had previously missed that memo) is that it might be worth it to suck it up, plop down the money, cut out the time and have someone else do my hair.

By doing that, I could have had a couple hours to myself and a head full of evenly colored, non hooker hair.  If I even wanted, I could have chosen a salon who's advertisements I found especially appealing, just to get my fix.

I'd like to declare that my lesson has been learned and I will no longer subject myself to this torture, but in all honesty, we'll just have to see when the roots come a calling again—the seduction of the hair care isle might be too much to resist.