What was I thinking?

A few months into our marriage, I got the crazy, horrific idea that I wanted to be a brunette. This was during a time when several previously blonde movie stars had gone brunette and I thought surely I'd look as good as they did. I told Lee what I was thinking and he was all, "Cool! Great idea! Can I help pick out the color?"

So, we packed our classy selves up and headed to the local Walgreens because where else would a fabulous makeover begin but in the aisle's of a chain pharmacy? After scouring over the different choices of hair color, we found a brilliant auburn that we both liked. The girl on the front of the box looked beautiful, breezy and very natural. I felt confident as I shelled out my 10 bucks that I was fast approaching a new, radient me.

Upon returning home, Lee had to head off to work and I decided to go ahead and get the process going. We had only one car at that time for some reason, I don't remember why, so he just dropped me off and I assured him that I would be a sexy brunette when he returned. I quickly tore into the box and applied the hair color, then sat down and waited for the 25 minutes to pass. Finally, with much excitement, I rushed back into the bathroom and checked my hair. I knew immediately that this was not going to turn out as I'd hoped. My head had a blackish purple color to it. I quickly jumped into the shower and tried not to panic as I saw the dark, very dark color, swirling at my feet. Upon getting out and drying my hair, I knew that I was in trouble. My hair was not the sexy brown of the girl on the box, but was actually a dark, almost purple color. I looked like some punk goth kid out to prove to her parents and the world that reality does indeed bite. So I called Lee and tearfully told he needed to come home now, which he did and promptly began laughing his head off. And, God help me, I tried to laugh with him, but it's really hard to laugh when you're bawling. So, after Lee composed himself, we headed to the mall (mistake number 2) and I walked into a Regis hair salon and shamefully asked if they'd bleach it out. Instead, they tried to just lighten the color so as not to damage my hair with bleach. An hour and a half later, I had red and orange stripes in my hair and I was close to sobbing. They finally bleached my hair.

At this point my scalp was bleeding and my hair was a very vibrant orange. Think Tony the Tiger. I paid my $220.00 and walked out with my head hanging low. I would go back the next day to try and correct the color but for the time being, they wanted me to let my head rest from all the chemicals. Ya think? Of course, I had to work the next morning, and guess what? I was a gymnastics coach, which meant I couldn't wear a hat. So, I walked into the gym, my neon orange hair clashing horribly with my bright red cheeks. Of course, every kid in there stared unabashedly. And, I love russians and their blatent honesty as every russian coach in the gym asked me what in God's name I had done to my hair. Humiliation in two languages! Perfect. As soon as I got off, I raced back to the salon where they semi-fixed my hair. But I swear, it's never been the same...
I know this is a terrible picture. The original is in a .tif format and I'm completely computer illliterate so all I could do was print this picture out and scan it in as a .jpeg. You get the idea though...