sona si latine loqueris

a short story for media class:

I walk down the hair-care aisle of Target, and as I’m looking for my plain ol’ shampoo, I pick up a box of Clairol Hair Color Toasted Almond: Brown #67. The color takes me back to when I was in 7^th grade, and I was staring at the same box (though it looked a bit dated then) with my natural dark brown hair hanging over my shoulders. I decided that I needed a change from my normal, boring dark hair, and I bought my first box of Brown #67 that day.

In the 7^th grade, there is always a group of girls, popular no doubt, that are in to fashion, hair, make-up; basically, the girly norm. Those girls always new what was in (with the help of their high school sisters), and they were the epitome of cool. Well, the day I bought my first box of hair color was the day I was noticed by their kind. I was invited to eat lunch with them. They all had N*SYNC lunchboxes, and ditched my old friends. By that time they were boring, dark haired dorks. I started noticing boys and gossiping about other girls with my new friends, the girls I trusted most, because they always gave me their honest opinions on my outfit.

I had my eye on the cutest 8^th grader in school, and told my best friend, the one who first invited me to eat with the cool girls. Within the next hour, the entire school found out. The ugly side of Brown #67 started to show, but went unnoticed. Rumors began to spread about some of the popular girls, and everyone blamed me for spreading them. My roots started to show through my color treated hair. My best friend became my crush's girlfriend, and then I knew I had to cover up my dark brown with the Toasted Almond again, and get things back to cool-me normal.

The day I went back to Toasted Almond, was the day I went back to the no longer boring me, considering my bleach blonde, frizzy head of hair. The popular girls disowned me and the cute 8^th grader had another girl. Alone in my frizzy, frizzy world. I came across my old friend while eating lunch by myself, and apologized for my snobby behavior towards her. She forgave me and actually dug my new ‘do.

I put down the box of Clairol, thanking God that my dark brown locks grew out of its bleached phase. I thought of how many boxes of color the cool girls had bought since then, and I walked away from the hair-care aisle of Target, never touching Brown #67 again.