I had a terrible New Year's hangover all day. Yet when I tried to explain this to anyone they looked at me as if I were mad.
I wanted to spend the evening in bed, but was going out to a friend's for dinner this evening so had to try and get myself back into the land of the living. So I had a bath.
I noticed that I had run out of shampoo, but managed to find a couple of small bottles of shampoo and conditioner in a cupboard that I had purloined from a hotel room at some point. My parsimony had saved the day. At least from my hair's point of view.
I settled down into my warm bath, still feeling pretty rough, though the hot water eased my pain somewhat. I was tempted just to stay where I was for the rest of my life, so that my skin would be both wrinkled from the water and old age. I theorised that it was possible that the wrinkling caused by the water and the wrinkling caused by the old age might act in different directions and cancel each other out. I had possibly found the secret of eternally youthful looking skin.
After a few minutes I decided that it would not be possible to put my theory to the test. I had already committed myself to going out and drinking more alcohol. My body lurched at the thought as if asking me what it had done to deserve to be treated this way. I told my body that it knew full well all the things it had done that justified such a punishment and my body reluctantly agreed that that was true.
It was time to wash my hair. I reached behind me to pick up the tiny shampoo bottle from the side of the bath. I unscrewed the lid and poured some of the special lathering preparation into my hand.
Immediately I knew something was wrong. The shampoo was too runny, the texture was wrong. I realised that in my fragile state, I had inadvertently picked up the conditioner rather than the shampoo. Now I had a hand full of conditioner, instead of the shampoo that all protocol and logic dictated should be applied to my scalp first.
Of course I could just have jetisonned the handful of conditioner (there was more in the bottle), but that seemed wasteful. Even though I hadn't (directly) actually paid for the conditioner, I felt that to just dispose of it unused would be an offence against God and Nature and my bank manager.
I decided that I would attempt to keep the conditioner in my cupped hand, whilst using my other free hand to shampoo myself. And then, when the shampooing was over, I would return to the conditioner and be able to use it without wasting a drop.
Which would be difficult, as the conditioner was already dripping through my fingers. I was confident that I could save enough of it to make this exercise worthwhile. I would not be defeated.
However, washing your hair with one hand is not as easy as you might imagine. Especially when you are trying to balance a runny if slightly viscous liquid in your other hand.
Firstly I had to unscrew the top of the shampoo bottle with one hand, then I had to tip that bottle up into the same hand and squeeze it (with the same hand) without getting the shampoo all over the shampoo bottle, then I had to put the shampoo bottle down and massage the shampoo into my scalp... with ONE HAND. All the time trying to preserve my dwindling supply of conditioner. I felt like I was taking part in a very poor game from a nude version "It's A Knockout" and I was just glad I hadn't played my joker.
To give me credit (or possibly to show what an idiot I am) I did manage to get the shampoo into my hair before I realised I was on a hiding to nothing. There wasn't enough shampoo to cover my luxuriant locks and it was very difficult to massage effectively and I realised that by the time I'd gone through this palaver the requisite number of times that there would probably be a negative amount of conditioner left in my hand.
I am sorry to admit that I gave up on the conditioner and consigned the remainder to the murky depths of my bath. I had reached a point where the worries over the wastefulness had been overcome by the inefficiency of the enterprise.
In fact, in hindsight, I couldn't really understand how I hadn't come to this inevitable conclusion straight away. It's not that I even really understand the point of using conditioner anyway.
If only I'd been good to my word and invented a combined shampoo/hairgel (which could also have conditioner in it), then this whole crazy debacle would never have happened.
