***Warning: This could happen to you. Just ask my neighbour.***

There are few things that annoy me worse than having a bad hair day. Chalk it up to vanity, low self-esteem or self-delusions, but I like to leave the house with a flowing mane that rivals Jessica Simpson’s lustrous locks.

Of course, it would help if I didn’t have fly-away limp blonde hair in desperate need of a cut and colour, and even on it’s best days never ever resembles Ms. Chicken of the Sea, but I like to fool myself into believing I could give her a run for her money.

If I had a gay hairdresser as my own personal servant friend and a million dollars to spend on hair extensions.

I don’t, so I just live in my happy world where unicorns run free and money grows out back on the pear tree.

Good hair equals great self-esteem and the ability to avoid scarfing down a triple scoop chocolate fudge sunday with whipped cream in order to drown out my self-pitying tendencies. The size of my ass and the state of my mental health all depend on me stepping out of the house and not resembling Nick Nolte’s mug shot.

I used to depend on how good I stuffed my bra to make my rack look great but since I’ve indulged in one too many sundaes my rack has significantly expanded improved and I find myself depending on my hair to avoid focusing on the wobbling of my ass as I walk.

(I’ve had to make the switch to granny panties and boy shorts because I got tired of the chaffing and rug burn that accompanied thongs and my jiggling butt cheeks.)

I digress. Steering the ship back to bad hair and away from my ass-crack.

So the other day, I was standing in front of the mirror and fighting with my misbehaving locks. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do, short of shaving it and pretending I was Britney Spears minus the million dollars, to make my hair cooperate.

I was running late and had to be at the kid’s school to attend their awards ceremony. I hate being late more than I hate having bad hair, so I gave up on trying to imitate any B-list Hollywood starlet and just yanked my hair back into a pony tail.

Grabbing my car keys, I loped out to the car and noted that I still had time to swing by the local coffee shop to grab a Chai tea latte before I was held captive in the school’s gymnasium, politely clapping for student’s I didn’t know and all of their accomplishments I didn’t care about.

My car wouldn’t start. Damn. I’ve been having problems with the battery and apparently, the battery decided to throw a hissy fit just when I needed my latte pick-me up the most.

Cursing my bad luck, I walked over to my husband’s shed and pulled out his battery charger and hauled the lunky thing towards my car. After banging my shins on the damn thing and getting my pretty blue skirt dirty, I popped the hood and hooked the thing up to my battery.

(Aren’t I a handy gal?)

I jumped back into the car and turned the key. Nothing. So I waited and tried again. Nothing. Nada. Damn. I jumped back out, cursing the world as I went, to check the connections. Maybe I did it wrong. Maybe I forgot to plug the thing in. Nope. Everything was where it was supposed to be.

So I got back into the car and tried the key again. Nothing. Frustrated and wanting to pull out my badly combed hair, I got back out of the car and kicked the battery charger. Cuz that always helps. It was then I realized I had forgot to plug in the battery charger. Oops.

Way to be a blonde, Tanis. So then I had to march back to the hubby’s shop, locate an extension cord long enough to reach from my house to the driveway, plug it in, walk back to my car, plug in the charger and rinse and repeat.

All the while the clock kept on ticking.

This time, when I turned the key the car came to life. Hallelujah. Rejoicing with a few favorite cuss words, I jumped back out of the car, leaving the car running, and unhooked the battery charger. I didn’t think twice when I shut the car door. I was just happy to get the damn thing started.

I was sweating by now and feeling more dirty than before I hopped into the shower, but by this time, I didn’t give a flying rat’s nest. If I pushed the speed limit, skipped the latte, I would still be punctual for the awards ceremony.

Sighing, I went to yank open the car door. It was locked. With my keys happily located in the ignition.

“ARE YOU FACKING KIDDING ME?” I yelled. I felt like banging my head against a tree. Great. Now what? I looked at my watch and noted the time and decided against phoning the local AMA driver. Mainly because he’s my brother-in-law and I didn’t want to listen to his ridicule but also because he was supposed to be at the same awards ceremony as I was. No sense on making him miss it because of my stupidity.

I ran back to the house to grab a coat hanger to break into my car. I’ve done it before, dammit, I can do it again, I thought to myself. (See how I’m delusional?)

Jabbing the wire down the window (and scratching my paint in the process) I realized I didn’t have a clue as to what I was supposed to be doing. Frustrated, I yanked the hanger out and sat down in the dirt to cry.

I’m pathetic, I know. But sometimes life is made better with a good weep. As I sat there feeling sorry for myself and eyeballing my dirty tires, I remembered my husband had stuck one of those hide-a-key boxes under my car’s frame.

The clouds parted and the sun came shining out and I got up and dusted myself off and proceeded to the front of the car. If I hurried I would only miss a few minutes of the ceremony and could sneak in to a seat at the back of the gym unnoticed.

Or so I hoped.

Planting my ass down in the dirt, and not caring if my skirt got dirty or not (vanity be damned at this point) I started feeling up my car, trying to find the magic metal box. Nothing.

So I bent lower and stuck my head under the car to see what I was doing. Just as I spied the box, I felt something. Something crawling up my legs and into my ass crack.

Then something bit me. In a delicate location if you know what I mean.

I grabbed the key box and smacked my head against the underside of the car in my haste to find out what the hell was wrong with my ass, which suddenly felt like it was on fire.

Standing up, I was horrified to find I had sat smack down on top of a facking ant hill. Red angry ants. So I did what any person would do. I screamed like a school girl and started smacking at all the ants that were crawling up my leg and in my shoes.

Realizing I had ants in my underwear, I lifted my skirt up as I stood in the middle of the driveway and ran around doing some funky chicken like dance while flicking ants off my ass.

Ever have a fire ant bite you on the petunias? Not fun people. Not fun.

So there I was, with my skirt up over my head, my underwear around my knees, hopping up and down trying to shake the little buggers off me, totally and completely skeeved out, when my neighbour drove past and stopped to wave.

Yep. What a show I gave that man. I have no idea how long he witnessed me in my half nekkid glory before he honked, and rolled down his window to ask if there was a problem.

Mortified, I dropped my skirt, hoping to cover the underwear around my knees and smiled and waved. “Nope, no problem!” I cheerily yelled as my face burst into flames. “Have a great day!” I called, hoping he’d move on and forget the image of me waving my ass cheeks at him like a freaking lunatic.

He smiled and nodded and just as he pulled out he grinned at me and called, “I always did love the site of a full moon,” and then drove off laughing.

Great. This was just icing on the freaking cake, I thought as I unlocked my car door, straightened my skirt and headed into town.

So I was late, had bad hair, ant bites on my ass, was wearing a filthy skirt and stuck searching for my dignity.

The day could only get better, I thought grimly.

Then I got to the school and another mom pulled me aside (thankfully before entering the packed gymnasium) and told me my skirt was tucked in the back of my underwear.

There isn’t enough ice cream in the world to make the memory of this day go away. For me or for my neighbour who now drives slowly past my house in hopes of seeing a repeat performance of my very own moon dance.

The next time I have a bad hair day, I’m crawling back in bed and pulling the covers over my head. At least then I’m guaranteed not to have life bite me on the ass. For all the world to see.