Good Hair Day
6:19 p.m. - 2005-10-11


When I was in junior high school, I had a best friend named Marsha. She lived around the corner from me, and was a pretty girl with dark hair. We were pals for two years, and entered high school together. Midway through our freshman year, she decided that she wanted to run with a more popular crowd, stood me up one lunch hour, and never talked to me again until decades later. At age 14, getting dumped by your best friend is very traumatic.

Flash forward about 16 years, and I had moved back to California with my husband and baby. One day, I woke up to my best hair day ever. I put on my coat, which was in great shape then, bundled up Melissa, and set out to grocery shop. At the market, as I turned from one aisle to another, I saw Marsha, who was also pushing a cart with a toddler in the seat. She noticed me, looked embarrassed, but a great hair day does wonderful things for your confidence, so I said hello and stopped to chat a bit. We exchanged information about what we had been doing during the many years since we had seen each other. Somehow, my story sounded really glam, working in Washington DC, marrying a guy who went to law school, moving back to California. She had never lived anywhere but the town we grew up in. During this chat, my child sat there with vast cuteness, good as gold, and her son thrashed around the seat, yelling and having a notable snit. She grew ever more embarrassed about that, so I said goodbye and moved on, my perfect hair gleaming in the light from the front windows.

Ah, karma. Don't go through life thinking there is no justice in this world.