to come home to find an Elvis crisis happening there, too. I had just stepped into my dad’s house and closed the front door with a frustrated slam when I heard his voice calling me from upstairs. “Is that you, Josh? Crap, I’ve got big problems. Can you get up here fast?”
Right. You’ve got problems? Try mine.
I took my time untying my shoes and kicking them off. When I didn’t show up as fast as he wanted, Dad shouted again. “Josh, did you hear me? I need you to get up here quick and help me out.”
Upstairs, I found my forty-year-old dad standing in the bathroom covered in an entire bottle of black hair dye.
Yes, I’m being totally serious.
Picture somebody who looks like a character in one of those old black-and-white horror movies:
Jerry Denny and the Attack of the Bathroom Zombies.
He was standing there barefooted with a beige towel wrapped around his waist and Hair Color for Men dripping everywhere. His face, his shoulders, even his feet had hair dye on them. The white linoleum looked like an inkblot test.
The whole scene might have been hysterically funny if I hadn’t already been mad. Mad about what had happened at school. Mad that my dad was always doing something embarrassing or stupid. Mad that somebody at Charles Lister had figured out who he was and it wouldn’t be long before the entire school knew.
“Read the directions, Josh,” my dad said in a frantic voice, jerking his head sideways toward a box sitting on the back of the toilet. His hands were stuck inside two ridiculously large plastic gloves (also covered in black dye), so he couldn’t reach for it himself. “How do I get this stuff off?”
I picked up the Hair Color for Men box and skimmed through the words, which seemed to say a lot about how hair color could make you look younger, more successful, less gray, and less self-conscious—but not much about removing it if you screwed up.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t give any directions that I could find.”
My dad shot me a frustrated look. “Just gimme the box, Josh. Jeez, I’ll read the directions myself.” He snatched it out of my hands and more hair dye dripped on the extra towels that were crumpled on the floor around his feet.
“Right here.” My dad jabbed his finger at the side of the box. “What does that say? Read that to me.” I read the microscopic print about using Vaseline or cold cream to remove the dye if it made contact with the skin. “Check in my medicine cabinet and see if I have any Vaseline.” My dad pointed in the direction of the tall wooden cabinet behind the bathroom door. “It’ll be in a plastic jar.”
I found some in the back of the cabinet after digging around a bunch of shaving cream cans and toilet paper rolls and old shampoo bottles. My dad smeared the stuff on a washcloth and began wiping his face. “I don’t know what the heck happened. I must’ve mixed the formula wrong or something. It just ran all over the place. I thought I could do the color myself—you know, give the sides a little touch-up instead of going back to the salon—but man, was that a mistake.”
I leaned against the bathroom doorway, not answering him. There was no way I was going to offer to help with any of the cleanup. Let my dad fix his own mess. I had enough of my own. “Can I leave now?”
“Sure,” Dad said, his voice muffled by the washcloth. “School go okay today?”
“Yeah, great.” I pulled the bathroom door shut behind me.
When my mom called an hour later, I told her the same thing. “How was your new school?” she asked. I told her it was fine, figuring when I eventually got beat up by the Post-it note people, she’d find out the whole story, right? And if she asked me why I hadn’t said something sooner about my dad, I’d tell her I’d been trying to handle my own problems now that I was thirteen and all. Then she would definitely send me a plane ticket to Florida.
Later on, I pulled the yellow note out of my
Right. You’ve got problems? Try mine.
I took my time untying my shoes and kicking them off. When I didn’t show up as fast as he wanted, Dad shouted again. “Josh, did you hear me? I need you to get up here quick and help me out.”
Upstairs, I found my forty-year-old dad standing in the bathroom covered in an entire bottle of black hair dye.
Yes, I’m being totally serious.
Picture somebody who looks like a character in one of those old black-and-white horror movies:
Jerry Denny and the Attack of the Bathroom Zombies.
He was standing there barefooted with a beige towel wrapped around his waist and Hair Color for Men dripping everywhere. His face, his shoulders, even his feet had hair dye on them. The white linoleum looked like an inkblot test.
The whole scene might have been hysterically funny if I hadn’t already been mad. Mad about what had happened at school. Mad that my dad was always doing something embarrassing or stupid. Mad that somebody at Charles Lister had figured out who he was and it wouldn’t be long before the entire school knew.
“Read the directions, Josh,” my dad said in a frantic voice, jerking his head sideways toward a box sitting on the back of the toilet. His hands were stuck inside two ridiculously large plastic gloves (also covered in black dye), so he couldn’t reach for it himself. “How do I get this stuff off?”
I picked up the Hair Color for Men box and skimmed through the words, which seemed to say a lot about how hair color could make you look younger, more successful, less gray, and less self-conscious—but not much about removing it if you screwed up.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t give any directions that I could find.”
My dad shot me a frustrated look. “Just gimme the box, Josh. Jeez, I’ll read the directions myself.” He snatched it out of my hands and more hair dye dripped on the extra towels that were crumpled on the floor around his feet.
“Right here.” My dad jabbed his finger at the side of the box. “What does that say? Read that to me.” I read the microscopic print about using Vaseline or cold cream to remove the dye if it made contact with the skin. “Check in my medicine cabinet and see if I have any Vaseline.” My dad pointed in the direction of the tall wooden cabinet behind the bathroom door. “It’ll be in a plastic jar.”
I found some in the back of the cabinet after digging around a bunch of shaving cream cans and toilet paper rolls and old shampoo bottles. My dad smeared the stuff on a washcloth and began wiping his face. “I don’t know what the heck happened. I must’ve mixed the formula wrong or something. It just ran all over the place. I thought I could do the color myself—you know, give the sides a little touch-up instead of going back to the salon—but man, was that a mistake.”
I leaned against the bathroom doorway, not answering him. There was no way I was going to offer to help with any of the cleanup. Let my dad fix his own mess. I had enough of my own. “Can I leave now?”
“Sure,” Dad said, his voice muffled by the washcloth. “School go okay today?”
“Yeah, great.” I pulled the bathroom door shut behind me.
When my mom called an hour later, I told her the same thing. “How was your new school?” she asked. I told her it was fine, figuring when I eventually got beat up by the Post-it note people, she’d find out the whole story, right? And if she asked me why I hadn’t said something sooner about my dad, I’d tell her I’d been trying to handle my own problems now that I was thirteen and all. Then she would definitely send me a plane ticket to Florida.
Later on, I pulled the yellow note out of my
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