it's all fun and games until someone gets lukewarm vinegar in the eye.

okay, so while i was outside and messing about with some weeds i somehow picked up this wicked little rash on my face. that was a week and a half ago. it's going away but good lord the going is SLLLLLOOOOOWWWWW. then last night i went to tuck the duke in and kiss him good night and WHAM! his rock solid head smashed right into my poor not as rock solid lip. and now i have a dark contusion to go with the rash.

i could go on, because there's more. there's always more. but i'll spare you and tell you a little story instead.

it begins with me deciding that what i needed was a little beauty 'pick me up.' something to make me feel better, beautiful in the midst of feeling decidedly not. something to put a little shine on the chrome.

it also needed to be easy and quick. so i decided on a hot oil treatment for my hair. having never done it before i reviewed some sage advice and went to it.

now, it should be said that beauty treatments and me don't go exactly hand in glove. more like fist through windshield. me being the windshield. i'm a fairly low maintenance kinda girl. i can put on the dog when i need to, but mostly what you see is what you get. all that messing about doesn't come naturally to me. so when i get into that kinda territory the results are anyone's guess. and often make for a painfully hilarious story. or, you know, just painful.

one day i'll tell you about my one and only foray into waxing. i cannot give you any more details, specific or otherwise, than that right now but i will say it.was.not.pretty. there were burns involved. and peeling. i missed work. i may or may not have re-evaluated my relationship with god. hell, i think i MET god. just thinking about it makes me nervous.

excuse me. (deep breath in...)

i need a moment. (let it out slowly...)

okay. (deep breath in...)

that's better. (you're safe now...)

anyway, so i grabbed the warmed olive oil and the industrial sized bottle of white vinegar and headed for the bathroom. please, just take that sentence at face value and let's move forward. so, i rubbed the olive oil through my hair and wrapped it in a towel. i read a magazine for the wait. so far, so good.

now. i don't take showers. i take baths. i was told to do this in the shower but the shower is all the way in the back bathroom and i don't like showers.

huh? what's that you say about foreshadowing?

so i filled up the tub and per the instructions i was supposed to 1. wash out the oil 2. rinse with water. 3. on the final rinse dump about a cup of the white vinegar on my head with the shower running overhead and then rinse THAT out. easy. oh, and make sure my eyes were closed. so yeah. easy.

yeah.

the oil coming out was fine. i shampooed and rinsed that out. then for the final rinse i went for the cup of the vinegar. i was using the rinsing pitcher so i just eyeballed it and poured it in. and then dumped the pitcher over my head. and then the shrieking began.

okay, the shrieking was all in my head. good lord me shrieking in the tub would bring at least 3 boy humans and all the cats to the tub. no way. if i can cure a kidney stone with copious amounts of beer and the tub in the middle of the night and not wake a single soul then i can handle this. the tub is like my own private idaho. what happens in the tub stays in the tub and is my business alone. no witnesses.

OH! MY! GOD! did it BURN!!! i thought i had my eyes closed!! but in a split second my right eye felt like someone poured their lifetime's supply of radium in it. and i guess it was a little more than a cup of vinegar, too. a LOT MORE. and it was cold and smelly and did i mention THE BURNING!?!

so then i tried to overcompensate by filling the pitcher and rinsing my eye with warm water. which in the process brought open the other eye. and because i couldn't really see with one eye burning and all my god damned hair everywhere (OMG!!! WHY DO I HAVE SO MUCH HAIR!!!) i missed and then rinsed all the, by now lukewarm, vinegar that was on my hair right into both my eyes.

JESUSCHRISTO!!

and re-cue the internal shrieking.

i don't know how but i finally got the eyes flushed and the hair rinsed. i managed to haul myself out of the tub. i managed to only mostly feel like a lab rat whose experiment had gone horribly wrong.

so now i have two red eyes, vaguely blurred vision, and hair that smells like my kitchen the night before easter.

beautiful.

x.