Review of a Blonde Day

You see over on the right, where I have proudly put a little whattayoucallit that says “Blonde and Smart”? I’m a natural blonde, and I am usually fairly intelligent as well. Not that blonde jokes upset or offend me, I think they’re funny. I collect them, in fact. Yet I never, well, almost never, consider myself to be one of those ditzy, flispy, airheads known as Dumb Blondes. I’m a smart blonde, like the label says.

Wellll…. Some days, I have to tell you, it’s not true.

Some days, for lack of a better excuse, or to simply avoid calling myself a big idiot, I have what I term “blonde days”.

Days when I put the milk in the cupboard after carefully stowing the cereal in the fridge.

Days when I look for fifteen minutes for the car keys that I have in my pocket.

Days when I look around with a pathetic, startled gaze, searching for the mysterious, eerie noise, thinking, What is that? Is it a ghost? Alien death rays piercing my skull?… and then discover that it is coming from my cell phone in my purse. (It’s called a RING and I’ve met it before, but some how, it keeps being unidentifiable on inexplicable occasions)

Days when I put on two different shoes (both of them are gray and blue, both of them are Nikes, but they are decidedly not the same shoe) and don’t notice until I’ve left the house, and I’m standing in the supermarket, wondering why the teenage girls in front of me in line are giggling and casting surreptitious looks at my feet. Did you know that there was a study done once and it was found that people notice your shoes, first, when looking at your overall appearance?

Days like yesterday, when the little, stoopid things I kept doing just piled up. Most of them are work-related and therefore completely boring and un-mentionable, but I will tell you about my Almost Ticket. My blonde day yesterday. If you are annoyed by people acting in an incredibly dumb manner for no discernable reason, I warn you… read no further.

I was running late for a friend’s birthday party, and wanting to reach the restaurant before they ate all of the pot stickers, I was moving at a steady clip. However, when the cop behind me turned on his lights, I pretty much ignored him. Aw, I haven’t done anything, so he can’t be after me…Blonde Moment Number One.

I slowed waaaay down, in order to let the nice officer pass, but to my surprise, and puzzlement, he continued to stay behind me, slowing down himself, until the two of us were positively crawling along the street, blocking traffic because of course no one in either lane was going to go around us, apparently for fear that the cop would lose interest in me and attack them, thinking, aha! There’s a driver who dares use the other lane and go past my obvious Police Car. I’ll teach him!

Finally, after an embarrassingly long time, the police officer blipped his siren at me. Just a short, little friendly, “Hey there. Yes, you! Pull your stupid ass over”…that kind of a blip. And I realized, oh…it is me he wants to talk to, after all.

I pulled over. When the nice officer came to my window, I launched into a defensive monologue without giving him time to speak. (This could be Blonde Moment Two, but I don’t want to be hasty, there’s plenty more moments coming) I don’t remember what I said, but I know it was something along the lines of… the party, my lateness, my horrible mood, the strange smell coming from under the passenger’s seat, and the fact that last time I checked, you could make a right turn on a red light in this state.

Yes, he acknowledged, you certainly could. Apparently, however, the key to this driving maneuver is to stop first. A full stop.

I did stop. (Blonde Moment Number Two.)

No you did not. You…paused.

I paused?

You certainly did.

Well, what exactly is a full stop? Describe it to me. (Blonde Moment Three)

You stop, you look to the left, then to the right, then to the left again, and then proceed.

I looked.

You looked, but you didn’t stop.

Oh.

And you don’t have on a seatbelt. You can get a pretty big ticket for that.

It was true, I didn’t have a seatbelt on. (Blonde Moment Four) I explained to the still polite man that I normally wear my seatbelt, virtually all the time, in fact, and it must just have been the rush I was I to get to the party …which I was progressively getter later and later for... However, pointing that fact out might have been Blonde Moment Five. I don’t know. You decide…. that I forgot to put it on.

He was skeptical. I could see it on his face. But he let it go. However, he did appear a bit impatient when I couldn’t find my insurance information, (and hello, Moment Six!) although I did assure him that I had insurance, it was taken out of my checking account every month on the fifteenth, like clockwork. I showed him my old insurance card, which I found easily. He didn’t look entirely convinced, but, kind man that he was, he let that go, too.

I listened raptly to his description of a Full Stop again. I listened to his lecture on seatbelts, and the following warning about the necessity of carrying your insurance card in your vehicle. It did no good whatsoever, he rightfully pointed out, in my other black purse. I considered listening to him my rightful punishment. Finally he was done talking. (I know, I asked.) He went back to his vehicle. I, very properly, put on my blinker and looked carefully at the oncoming traffic. I was doing everything right.

When I was just getting ready to pull back out into traffic, and the nice officer sat scribbling things on a little pad against the wheel of his car behind me, I was, of course, shocked when he blipped the siren again.

I stopped, foot on the brake and stared at him. What now?

He mouthed the word, but I understood it clearly.

SEATBELT.

Oh. Heh. Guess I forgot to put it on again. Blonde Moment Number Seven in less than ten minutes, and surely the crowning one of the day.

I made it to the party, even got a potsticker. Afterward, unfortunately, I agreed to see the movie School For Scoundrels, which I will review soon. For a preview, read this: YUCK. All in all, it was pretty good, for a Blonde Day.