My wife has left on a solo trip and took her hairdryer with her
Jun. 26—Mere minutes after my wife left home for her five-day trip to meet up with a girlfriend from out-of-state, I already missed her.
Well, not her specifically. Rather, I missed her hairdryer.
As I stood in the bathroom, staring in the mirror at my floppy, damp hair dangling pathetically on my forehead, I tried to tell myself that everything would be OK.
"You'll get through this, Adam," I told my reflection. "It's just hair. A mass of ratty ol' dead keratin bursting forth from your gross head skin. Who cares if it looks terrible?"
My reflection looked doubtful.
"You're a grown man," I added, as if that might help. "Forty-one years old. And a dad. You helped produce life and then have, at least somewhat successfully, raised that life you helped produce for six years. You can make it for a few short days without a hairdryer."
My reflection raised an eyebrow.
"Co-raised," he said. "You co-raised that life. With Mandy. Who's gone. With the hairdryer."
Despite his unkempt appearance — with all that disgusting, limp hair flopping atop his eyebrows like he was some kind of '90s goth band reject — my reflection made a good point. Which, honestly, I should have been expecting. After all, my wife's journey northward represented the first significant amount of time we'd been apart in our 16 years of marriage ... and the first stretch of any length in which I'd been left to care for our daughter by my lonesome. I honestly didn't know how things were going to go, or what my life would be like without her.
"Oh, I think you know," my reflection told me. "Just look at you. All damp-headed and lost. Talking to yourself. Pretending like you won't miss that hairdryer. It's pathet—"
"I used to have one, you know," I interrupted.
My reflection gave me an annoyed but inquisitive look.
"A hairdryer," I said. "You remember it, right? Our own hairdryer? It was made of mostly clear plastic so you could see the heating coils inside the barrel, and the whole thing would glow red as it belched hot air atop our head. We could have gone spelunking with that thing, it was so bright. I think ... I think I got it before moving off to college."
"I remember it," my reflection said, sans any of my wistfulness. "And it was high school. And it broke. Crapped out on us one morning with our hair dripping wet and looking a mess. That's when you started using Mandy's, remember?"
I nodded. I remembered.
At the time, I'd considered buying a replacement for the hairdryer I'd lost. But I quickly thought better of it. Money was tight, and I didn't blow dry my hair frequently enough for a shiny new hairdryer to take priority over things like eating. Plus, I could count the number of times Mandy and I required simultaneous use of a hairdryer on one hand. Or no hands, because it never happened.
So, for years, I've used my wife's hairdryer to give the mass of ratty ol' dead keratin bursting from my gross head skin a quick puff of hot hair before heading out the door.
"She's had that thing forever," I said of the hairdryer. "Since high school, just like me. Except it's never quit ... left us high and dry. Or high and wet, I suppose. It's always been there for us. Through good days. Bad days. The kinds of days when you just really, really needed dry hair when you step out the door, you know. I knew I could count on it. And now, it's gone."
I exhaled and looked at myself in the mirror.
My reflection nodded.
"You've got this," he told me.
"Of course I do," I said, lacking some, but not all, confidence.
"And, besides," my reflection added, "you could always buy another hairdryer."
I scoffed.
"Nah," I said. "Wouldn't be the same. Besides, who needs two hairdryers?"
My reflection and I both shrugged in unison, our hair still damp but not quite as much, and then headed out the bathroom door.
