He really shouldn’t have

He really shouldn’t have gone to that discount drugstore to buy it. This was a time when he should have splurged a little and gone to a professional.

And then, when he was looking at the available colors on the shelf, he really shouldn’t have picked that one. Perhaps the man on the packaging caught his eye, and he thought it was the colour that made the model so attractive. Or perhaps under the flourescent lighting of that cheap drug store, the colour on the box looked as if it would match perfectly.

But he really shouldn’t have chosen that colour

The name alone should have been warning enough

Burgundy Bronze.

No one’s hair color is ever naturally Burgundy Bronze, nor should it ever be dyed that color.

But it was too late. He had bought that color and had applied it amply but not altogether evenly to his hair.

And having done that, he should have looked in the mirror. But obviously he didn’t

He really shouldn’t have gone out.

But he did.

And now having made his way to the Business lounge for Delta Airlines in Atlanta, he really shouldn’t have chosen that seat. There were plenty of comfortable looking armchairs away from the windows.

But he must have wanted to watch the planes, because he chose a stool by the counter that ran along the picture window. A huge expanse of glass that attracted the sun and concentrated its light directly onto the man’s hair, revealing every little imperfection. If only the imperfections had been little, then there would be little to write about

But as it was the shiny pate, barely covered by carefully combed, badly dyed and heavily slicked down hair glistened in the sun’s rays, like cheap makeup on an unattractive drag queen under overly bright stage lighting. Small tufts of hair that had received more than their fair share of hair dye glittered bronze in the light while others less fairly treated looked listless in a dull shade of burgundy.

He really shouldn’t have talked so loudly on his cell phone. His high pitched voice dripping with a southern drawl could be heard across the room, if not across the tarmac. It was like nails on a chalkboard .

He really shouldn’t have talked for so long about his mother’s ailments. No one in the room, and probably no one on the other end of the phone, was interested in her dementia, her urinary tract infection, her impaired hearing, or her wheelchair. We cared little for the fact that she thought she had caught her urinary infection from another rest home inmate, we cared a little more about the fact that he resented how much this home was costing him, and we cared quite a bit about the fact that he wasn’t prepared to pay for speech rehabilitation therapy .

So he really shouldn’t have subjected so many people to this long, tedious and eventually unsettling conversation.

And then he really shouldn’t have ended the conversation by saying that his mother got on his nerves and he had told her that she talked too much.

He really shouldn’t have been surprised when the entire lounge burst into laughter.

And then there was one more thing he shouldn’t have done that day.

He REALLY shouldn’t have sat next to me.