Radiant Red

A few weeks ago, I started using a new hair conditioner. It’s called ‘Radiant Red’ and as the name suggests, it’s made especially for us redheads. (And very good it is too, by the way: you should totally buy it. Unless, of course, you don’t actually have red hair, in which case that would be a bit silly.)

Anyway. The conditioner is called “Radiant Red” and trust me, this is not a reference to how my hair looks after I’ve used it, but a reference to what the conditioner itself looks like. It is red. Oh so very red! Radiant red, you could say. Or you could just say, “Oh my holy hell, I wish I hadn’t bought white towels now. And a white bathroom suite.” Because trust me, this stuff gets absolutely everywhere. One thing I’ve learned about myself since I’ve been using it is that I apparently flick my head around like a demented person when I’m in the shower. (WHY?) I know this because every time I use the conditioner, the bathroom ends up looking like THAT scene from Psycho. GOD.

Luckily, the stuff washes off. Not so luckily, I am the person who has to wash it off, which I guess is only fair, really, given that I’m the one doing all the head flicking.

So, yesterday I decided to have a shower while Terry headed out to walk the dog. I thought this was quite cunning of me, because not only did it get me out of having to be outside, where it is cold, it also gave me a good excuse for not answering the phone while Terry was out. Or, indeed, the door.

The postman arrived at the door with a package for me while I was in the shower. I didn’t even hear him knock, on account of how Rubin wasn’t there to throw a complete fit at the sound of someone walking up the driveway, so I continued to merrily apply my RADIANT RED conditioner to my hair, in blissful ignorance of the fact that there was now a package waiting for me. So the postman took the package to our neighbour, and a few minutes later Terry arrived home, let Rubin into the house and then headed over to our neighbour’s house to collect the package.

For reasons that still aren’t clear to me, he did not take his keys with him when he did this. So the door closed behind him, and locked, forcing him to knock to gain re-entry.

I, meanwhile, was still in the shower, still coated in RADIANT RED, and still completely unaware that all this had happened. So when Terry knocked on the door and Rubin started a hysterical barking in response to this, I was confused. Apparently Rubin was home, but Terry was not? Had Rubin made his OWN way home from his walk then, and somehow let himself into the house? What had happened to Terry? And why was Rubin barking hysterically? Was it… OH MY GOD… could it be that something had happened to Terry while out walking, and Rubin was, at this very moment, trying to get me to follow him to the scene of the accident, where I would no doubt find Terry stuck down a well, calling feebly for help while his faithful hound raced home for reinforcements?

Well, no. Terry had just locked himself out, and so it was that I was forced to abandon my lovely warm shower and run the naked gauntlet of the freezing cold house, scattering RADIANT RED as I went, in order to let him in. By the time I got back to the bathroom it literally looked like a massacre had just taken place. The walls were splattered with RED. The floor was splattered with RED. The ceiling? RED. (HOW?) The bath? Filled with a pool of RED, that I swear to God, looked exactly like blood. Seriously, I am still amazed at how far that stuff goes. I’m still finding bits of it now, every time I go in there. And I really wish I had thought to take a photo at the time but clearly I’d more pressing matters to deal with at the time, so all I have to show for The Incident is this:

They were on the floor of the bathroom as I swept by them, and the photo actually doesn’t do justice to the sheer amount of RED I had to clear up. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Oh, and that package Terry went to collect for me? Contained two more bottles of the RADIANT RED. I’m not even joking.