Fetishes and Domestic Harmony

Fascinations is a better name than fetishes. Call it a fetish and I see archeological artifacts with no function (or purpose, to the inventory catalogers) as “fetishes”. Of fascinations (or, fetishes) I have several, and one: red hair.

After several years without, my redhead wife (W) walked in sporting new, younger hair. It was red, but not her red. Her red long ago morphed into brown with growing hints of grey and white over the years. She always frosted, or sloppy-dyed, except for one refreshing moment before kids that revealed the beauty of her red.

My fascination with red did not start with W. She was a logical interval, but girls with orange carpets dominated my relationships and ‘puppyhood’ long before. Back then, red was common to pre-teen girls and turned rare as they matured. Fortunately, red is popular now, and genetics are helping multiply the most dynamic of coiffed looks.

So, W slammed the front door and announced that there was no way the poor stylist could make money. "She was such a perfectionist!" That meant W liked the basic haircut--a second time in our coupledom--and the stylist. Then, W dropped the proverbial ticking bomb, even though I am so callused to the explosive errors it makes little difference. “She insisted on starting with red. ‘It will make you younger.’” Yes, you do look younger and better without all of the blonde highlights. I patted myself for comprehending the double entrende of her thoughts and statement.

She sucked my praise in and glowed while she described a bunch of color match stuff that meant nothing to me. I prepared her dinner of leftovers and mumbled at appropriate moments. I said nothing about the alien red she sported. It was OK. A red not worth cold silence for a week if I admitted the truth.

Again, she positioned another bomb. It was the doozey, but in her mind the natural progression of human caring and sharing …

“I told Trae she needed to fix your hair.”

I have lost count of all the solutions W has found for my perceived failures and flaws. The worst was her ‘Personal Banker’ who still has her hocked to the gills and 30% usury after running up card debt to the limit within six months of opening the account. All of it in overcharge fees. A shark I smelled, that only perturbed W when I warned a couple days after the heinous attack.

The “fix” for my hair reminded me of an at-home stylist friend of a friend I had to try at W’s pressure. I walked away from that experience with untouched sideburns. Apparently, women’s stylists are restricted from doing certain basic cuts due to licensing limitations. Like a guy with a hangover on Sunday morning and no knowledge of state regulations is going to complain when his sideburns are trimmed.

To ease away from the cold silence potential, I reminded W of my recent fiascos with an alternate chop shop, and that I really enjoyed my crooked and gay relationship with my lady of fifteen years who knows how to keep my sideburns straight.

Soon after, we retired. Me to my snoring and W to her micro-waved dinner. I sneaked peeks and wondered how dye could make hair look like Google’s “e”, in gummy bear transluscence.