Bula! Bula!

What’s on my mind? 

They say everyone has a first time. You’re sure you’ll look “different” - and that every stranger in the street will know you’ve performed “the act.” Guilt sets in. You confide in a friend, later thinking: “What if she tells someone? I don’t want everyone else to know!”

But they will know.  When I colored my hair last month, everyone knew. That’s because a scar like a train track winds around my head. My naturally brown hair normally hides this scar, but the track turned Roadkill-Red two seconds after I applied a color billed as having (1) “light reddish tones” and being (2) “PERMANENT.”   

“ACK! ACK!” I thought, washing and scrubbing with a fervor I haven’t felt since Mike Goepel planted one on my lips in Grade 7.

Grabbing Himself’s 30-year-old bula towel (his beloved memory of Fiji) to dry my hair, I noticed large swaths of the towel had turned purple. 

“It’ll come out in the wash!” I nervously reassured myself. The word “PERMANENT” again coming to mind, it didn’t. Skilfully folding the purple parts, I hid the towel under a suitcase. 

Himself loves this towel the way he loves me - unconditionally, despite its age and frayed edges. It didn’t take long before he asked: “Where’s my bula towel?” I would have casually taken my leave at that point, but “bula” means “hi” in Fijian. 

“Dunno … Haven’t seen it!” Which, while this wasn’t exactly true, it wasn’t exactly a lie, the towel being outa-sight-outa-mind, under the suitcase. 

Himself probably sniffed the lingering odor of argan and wheat germ oils the package promised in either or all the developer cream, colorant cream, and color care conditioner in the product, because he started hunting.

Who reads package fronts (or side or backs, for that matter)? Not me. But I was reading them no-o-w … The words on the package that stuck with me were those very oils. 

With no idea what argan and wheat germ oils were, I looked them up. 

“Does wheat germ make you poop?” someone asked Google. I’m not sure the question or its reply were relevant, but here goes: 

“Along with endosperm (endo- wha-a-a?), germ and bran make up a whole grain, providing the fiber necessary for a healthy intestinal bacteria balance that turns your digestive tract into a pooping powerhouse.”

I definitely did not want to become a “pooping powerhouse.”

Argan oil? “Four wheat germ oil alternatives … purchased from a local supermarket in Hawaii, were added to a fruit fly liquid larval diet as a replacement for wheat germ oil in the rearing of fruit fly larvae.” 

Fruit flies? Endosperm? A pooping powerhouse? I don’t … want … to know.

At that very moment, I heard Himself scream: “My bula towel! My bula towel!” It was the sound of rage fueled by grief. He must have looked under the suitcase.

© Nicole Parton, 2020