Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Very Short Stories: The Towel

I was 23 and living in a little blue house in Wallingford with Kendra and Lisa. We were always doing fun girl things. I had this green book that I bought from Aveda about living a 'Holistic' lifestyle. I never read it through, just thumbed through it in the bath and looked at the colorful charts about color therapy and essential oils.

Lisa and I were really into Aveda at the time. I don't know where we got the money to buy Aveda things, but apparently we did because we didn't steal and we had a lot.  We liked to go into the store because every time we'd get a hand massage from a gay man.

One of the home spa treatments suggested in the book was to put olive oil in your hair and then wrap a warm wet towel around your head for ten minutes. This would allow the oil to soak into your hair and leave it shiny and lustrous. I was alone in the house one day and decided to give it a go. I stood in the shower and poured olive oil onto my hair and rubbed it in with my hands. The book suggested that a good way to warm up the towel was to soak it in water and then put it in the microwave. I followed the instructions, ran the towel under the faucet, stuck it in the microwave and pressed the button with the popcorn icon.

After ten seconds the towel exploded inside the microwave. There were great big flames. 

I pulled the plug and pulled out the towel.  I took it outside and threw it in the trash bin where no one could find it. Then I went inside and sat on the couch for a while. I thought about the fact that I had just set fire to a towel in a microwave. Of all my many friends, I think I am the only one to have ever done that.

The olive oil took about a week to wash out of my hair.

Lisa as roomate

4 comments:

Adriana Iris said...

I can always count on your posts. Ty =)

Wendy said...

I laughed at this story...but glad that the fire in the microwave didn't cause any other damage. If you do try olive oil again for your hair...just put a little on a paper towel and dab that on your hair and scalp. That way you won't saturate your hair, it will be easy to wash out and it won't drip all over the place.

Andrew said...

That's the best olive oil in the hair, setting a towel on fire in the microwave story I've heard all day.

Also, now I can go around bragging that, finally, I'm friends with someone who set a towel on fire in a microwave.

Dr. Unk said...

Ha ha, that was rad.