Farewell, My Lovely

(With apologies to E.B. White.)

…So a couple of Saturday mornings ago, I was drying my hair and the dryer quit on me.

Uh oh.

It was 8:30 a.m. and my hair was soaking wet.

And it was chilly outside.

I did some heavy, cleansing Lamaze breathing and my mind raced back to a fateful night in Florence, Italy…

I was living in a fifteenth century tower in the Borgo San Jacopo.  I was a houseguest of my BFF Barbara and her famous artist boyfriend, Alvarro.

I had been encamped on the sofa of their living room for over a month when Barbara came to me with a question.

“Would you mind terribly if we went to Fiesole for the night?  Will you be okay here alone?”

“I’ll be fine,” I answered eagerly.  “You guys have put up with me in your space long enough.  And I have lots to do to keep me busy.  Go ahead and enjoy your trip.  Avanti!”

So it was settled and my friends bustled around the apartment making arrangements for their overnighter.

I made arrangements of my own.

I was going to wash my hair.

Now this might not sound like a big deal but believe me, it was.  (And it still is.)

First, back in the day, I had LOTS of hair.  Before I could even think of taking a hair dryer to it, I used to have to wrap it in a bath towel for at least one hour before I even dared try. (If I tried to dry my soaking wet head, I’d burn out the dryer.  I had learned this the hard way.)

Next, my American hair dryer didn’t work on electric circuits alla italiana.

Paging Nicola Tesla!  Every time I wanted to wash my hair, I’d have to go to the neighborhood electricista and drag home a heavy iron-clad adapter the size of a suitcase.

Then- and only then- could I plug in my hair dryer and get some results on my past-the-shoulders hair style on 1975.

Today this would be a snap.  Take a look at the converters you can pack now.

 

But in 1975, I had to schlepp home an anvil with an outlet in it.

My amici took off around four.  I looked forward to a little privacy myself, come to think of it.

I busied myself, had dinner, and then around seven, I washed my hair.  My plan was to listen to music, watch a little Italian tv, and then read for the rest of the night.

As I sat on the bed, my head swathed like a Sikh, I started to listen to Stevie Wonder’s great Innervisions.

Groovy.  And as I plugged in my hair dryer into that gigantic adapter, I wasn’t worried about a thing.

And then…

Boom.

The power blew.

Not in the converter.

In the WHOLE apartment.

The lights went out, the stereo gave up the ghost, and worst of all, my head was still soaking wet.

My hair dryer/adaptor business had overloaded the fifteenth century circuits and now I was alone in the dark.

In a renaissance tower.

With no flashlight, candle, or any idea of where the fuse box was.

(Or if fifteenth century towers on the Borgo San Jacopo even had fuse boxes.)

I was screwed.  I tentatively groped my way over to the sofa and cautiously sat down.  I had no idea how to reach Barbara to ask her what to do.

It was only 8:15 but there went my entire evening’s game plan.  And for the rest of that very long night, I laid there without anything to do on a sopping, ice cold pillow- no matter how many towels I put under my head.

…But this was 2016 and I had options available in Chicago that I didn’t have in Firenze.

Quickly I mentally raced through my nearest hair dryer-buying options.  Walgreen’s was pretty close and open.

CVS was open and closer still.

Did Mariano’s even have hair dryers?  Hmmm…

But then I thought “What would Marconi do?”

And I checked the circuit in my bathroom.  (I hadn’t done this first because all of the bathroom lights were still on.)

Ecco! The circuit that the dryer was on had blown.  I re-set it, and in a second, I was in business again.

But I had learned my lesson.

As soon as I was dry, I hit my Amazon app.  After all, my hair dryer was purchased in 1991. How long did I expect it to last?

And now I have this as backup.

Now if only I can find a store in the Twilight Zone that would sell me a hair dryer that would make my hair look like this:

Instead of this:

Ciao!