Letter to the Editor: The wild brunette life
By: Vic Bentley – Junior, Communication
It all started as a Publication Design assignment: study the magazines and ads situated at the entrance of the checkout lines in the grocery store, and see what really stands out. What did I notice? The blondes looked all washed out, common and ordinary, hardly noticeable. What stood out for me was the bold, striking, long dark hair of the brunettes.
So, having been a boring, Midwestern dishwater blonde my entire life, I decided to embark on a grand experiment: to become a brunette and see what happens.
It took all the courage I could muster, but as I marched into the hair salon, I knew there was no turning back. The odorous chemical smells not withstanding, I picked up a hairstyle book, pointed to the darkest colored hair I could find, and said: “This is what I want.”
After an enormous altercation of incredulity, my hairdresser, who thought I should really be two shades lighter, said, “All right!”
After an hour of hardly being able to breathe with all the chemical fumes on my head, I emerged … a brunette! And it was worth it too.
It was like being reborn. Doors started to open right and left, everywhere I went, as heads turned to notice me.
“Unbelievable,” I thought. If I’d known it was going to be like this, I would have done this earlier.
Smiles and approving head nods of admiration from my female classmates affirmed what I had already suspected: becoming a brunette was a good choice.
The Kennedy Union Dining Services cashiers, who always give me wonderful commentary on how they think I’m doing as a student at UD, said, “You look younger now than you did when you started here three years ago!” “You should get a new ID card!” After the hundreds of all-nighters here at UD, I can assure you that this is a virtual impossibility.
However, as “Star Wars” teaches us, there’s a dark side everything too, and becoming a brunette was no exception to that rule. With some professors, I started to notice unusual behaviors, which later I learned were outright expressions of fear. This caused them to engage in some extremely defensive actions, and ended up in an enormously painful misunderstanding of catastrophic proportions.
Having dyed over the mantle of mousehood, it took all the energy I could muster to convince everyone that I was still the same sweet good gentle soul that I was before. “Good Grief!” as Charlie Brown used to say.
What did I learn from this grand experiment? Being a brunette is powerful. Whatever you are now as a person, when you become a brunette, you are now magnified by at least a factor of 10. So if you are already a pretty intense person like I am: watch out, girl! You’re in for a pretty wild ride!
Would I do this again? Absolutely. It taught me so many wonderful lessons about the power of perception. So I say, go for it ladies, but if you decide to become a brunette, just remember, you might have to dial yourself down a little bit to keep from getting into “Imperial” entanglements!