Dreams, Ambitions and Bleach.

Salon chat is often jolly, acidic, or wandering and is never boring. And the clientele at Salon Decadence is no exception.

I had been reading a magazine and waiting out my toner when, two chairs over from me a woman materialized like a firecracker in a toilet bowl. She was an energetic woman with dynamic red hair, Day-Glo Band-Aids on her right thumb and a personality that had no time for the work, “No.”

Dynamic asked where _____ was and was told she worked a couple doors down for more hours because she was pregnant. Dynamic shot up in her chair suddenly and said, “REALLY!? HOW GREAT!! IS IT A BOY OR A GIRL?!!

When told the couple had decided they’d like to be surprised, Dynamic said, “That’s CRAP. I HATE that. How do you shop not knowing if it’s a boy or a girl?! You don’t know whether to get blue or pink!!” And, defeated, she slumped back into her stylist’s hands.

Her stylist suggested green. I suggested going with yellow. Dynamic would have none of it, declared surprises to be elaborate crap, and announced with finality that the couple were just going to have to find out the gender of the child so she could shop appropriately.

I sat there staring at the same page of my magazine, scalp tingling, and thinking: Pink with butterflies, unicorns and princesses or blue with frogs, cowboys and knights would imply – even today – that girls are supposed to have dreams while boys are supposed to have ambitions. What a shame when we were so clearly intended to experience more than half of the universe on a good day.