Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The woman working at Hot Topic complimented my dye job.
If you don’t know what Hot Topic is, it’s a store in the mall that sells punk rock and heavy metal music, clothes, accessories. It’s the store I wanted to exist when I was a teenager. Now that it does actually exist I find it really bizarre. Just weird on so many levels.
I went there because Cat wanted to get some Christmas presents for her friends, and I didn’t want to go to the mall after school or on the weekend because it’s insane to go during those hours. So I went shopping for her. She wanted to get something Gir-related for her best friend, Gir being a cartoon character on the tv show Invader Zim. I found a little compact with lip gloss in it shaped like Gir. Her friend is also really into the band HIM, and they had a giant HIM button right by the register, so I grabbed that, too.
The woman at the cash register, who looked about like this, said, “I love your dye job. I mean, your hair is naturally brown, right? The blond looks great. Really natural.”
I don’t think of my hair as blond, but I guess you could call it that. Just a lighter brown than my natural color, which I use because with all my gray, it looks more natural.
I said, “It’s because the blond doesn’t cover all the gray, so it looks more natural.”
Then she thought I’d been offended, like she had noticed all my gray, or something. I dunno. People are weird.
I often wonder if people who work at Hot Topic are in on the joke. I shop there for some things, since it’s the easiest place to pick up some nuclear red hair dye or a Ramones onsie for the kiddos, though I did once hear some kid ask what music was playing and when the clerk replied “It’s Bowie” the kid asked if they were a new band.
And just this week I realized that all their retro stuff is the stuff I grew up with. I’m old enough to be retro….
What tripped me out was going into a vintage clothing store in Long Beach and seeing my old Adam Ant and Cure tshirts for sale for $50.