It didn't take long for the weirdness to happen. Oh how I love when the weirdness happens and the stories begin. It makes me want to greedily rub my hands together and cry out, "AT LAST! I have a good one." And now I love that at the end of the night I get to lay in bed with Pete and laugh about the night that was just had.
The first weekend of each month different neighborhoods here have an art walk. In my prior existence in North Carolina, Eylin and I used to attend the one in NoDa, when I'd come visit her neck of the woods. Well this is now my neck of the woods too and so the others must be explored. I'd heard that the neighborhood, Plaza Midwood, which we frequent, was having one called "Holiday in the Hood". Pete and I decided to go to it last Saturday. We went to two of the restaurants there for a drink and then ran into some friends and so the four of us went off to explore it. Our roommate met up with us at the first gallery we went to, then we ran into some more friends there. I like this about the neighborhood...you always run into somebody you know, or in my case, somebody that Pete knows and whom I am getting to know. Two of the friends go off to another place and the five of us check out the gallery. Once we're done we realize it appears that this is the only true gallery. The rest of the participants of "Holiday in the Hood" are restaurants, shops, and even a hair salon. We decide to just to the bar nearby and the boys could shoot pool.
I'm not much of a pool player, and while I'd like to try, I didn't want to impose upon a serious game with the boys so I plunked down at the bar. The boys hung out with me until a table opened. While we waited, this guy in a cowboy hat sits by us at the bar and Pete has met him many a time so we all start talking. A table opens up and the boys go play and I continue talking with this guy whom is apparently a musician that performs often and tours a lot. Please note that I do not learn this until later. Something that constantly amuses me when I live other places than where I grew up, is that when people learn you are from the Seattle area they want to talk about music with you. This is fine, as I love, love, love music and am totally down to discuss it. However, the damned grunge scene always comes up. I don't mind reminiscing about the fun had in those days and the great shows I got to see, but man, people like to analyze the crap out of it or ask you if you've ever met (fill in the blank). It's kind of ridiculous, but slightly amusing.
So there I am talking with this guy and having a nice time, but he keeps finding just the right moments to sing. Why do people have to sing when they're talking about music? I mean, can't you just talk about the damned song or musician and leave it at that? Why do you have to tell me how much you hate Creed and then sing a piece of one of their songs? I hate Creed too, but if I really hate something that much, I sure as hell am not going to ruin someone else's night with a blip of the song. I knew what we wanted, he wanted me to say, "Gee, you have a really great voice. Are you a musician?" And then they can say, "I sure am" and begin to brag about themselves. I have spent a good chunk of my life in the bars of Seattle where every Tom, Dick and Harry is a musician. I know the drill. It's the ones who are more humble about it and don't try to throw it in your face, that I appreciate and respect. Back to the story. So he tells me he's a musician (gee...really?) and starts telling me stories from the road and talking about how hard it is to find other musicians who take it seriously and don't misrepresent him with their drunken behavior at bars. The man actually said to me, "When my drummer goes and pinches the ass of some woman who turns out to own the bar, what he doesn't realize is that eventually the story will change to, 'I pinched the owner's ass.' When you play with me, you're representing me."
Despite all this, I am enjoying the company while the guys shoot pool and am at least entertained by the conversation. And then he says it.
Guy: You know, you have a good man there in that Pete.
Me: Oh, I KNOW that. He's amazing.
Guy: I say that because any man who leaves his woman with Hick'ry Hawkins is a trusting man. They usually know better. I mean, I have a woman and I wouldn't do anything because of that, but when I was single...
Guy: (What I want to say) Are you fucking kidding me?
Me: (What I really said) Oh.
So now I'm just flat out blown away. Thank god at that moment, an older biker guy walk in, stands between us at the bar and starts talking to him. His name is Chico. I am introduced to him and Chico starts talking about how much the art walk sucks. "But I got mine! It may have sucked, but I got mine!" Then he pull out a bottle from his jacket and slams it on the counter. It's a bottle of conditioner.
Me: Where did you get that?
Chico: Stole it from that salon on the art walk.
Me: That looks like good conditioner. You gonna use it?
Chico: (Take off his hat. He is totally bald.) Doubt it.
Me: Can I have it?
And Chico gives me the conditioner and mutters something and laughs. I ask him what he said. He repeats himself, "Make sure to think of Chico when you take a shower now!" And we all laugh.
Chico leaves and Pete returns. The musician asks how we met and we tell him our story, which is just such an awesome story and he claims to love it too. So we leave and head over to another bar for a drink with our friends, then to another after that to a show. We leave the car behind and ride with our roommate and I tell them about my time at the bar when they were playing pool and we all laugh. We get home and Pete and I laugh more about the evening and talk about how much fun we had, and we go to bed.
The next morning I am hungover and we stay in bed for a while. Finally we get up and I take a shower and am all excited to use my new, stolen, high-end conditioner. I put it on and it's quite tingly. This does not alarm me, as I've used other great stuff that tingles when you put it on. Well the tingling turns to burning and I rinse it out. I get out of the shower and rush to the mirror because now my skin is burning.
"OH MY GOD!"
Pete runs in and repeats my statement when he sees me. My reflection is scary. Everywhere on my skin that my conditioned hair has touched is burned...and it's spreading fast. Soon my entire face, back of my neck, part of my throat, and my upper back and shoulders are bright red and on fire. The stupid conditioner has burned me. I wrap my hair up in a towel so it will stop touching my skin. I am fearful that my hair is going to fall out next. Pete rubs burn gel that I find, on my afflicted spots and I whine...a lot. "You realize this is Karma for using stolen conditioner," I tell him. He nods and keeps applying the burn cream. Our roommate checked out the ingredients when he was in the shower and it turns out the first one is Alpha Hydroxy Acid. Who the hell puts this in hair products? I set it aside so I can take it to the hospital if the burning doesn't stop.
Hours later I am back to normal, so it didn't do as much damage as we'd initially thought, but my god it was ridiculous. And I learned my lesson. Do not take stolen goods as gifts and never, ever, ever use anything on your hair that a bald man gives you.
