Surviving With Miss Magic Hair Color

I was twenty-three, well educated, and I didn’t know a damned thing. I jumped right into the trenches, teaching in many different settings, but hey, kids are kids, except some just happen to carry lethal weapons.

Inner City School – Student Teacher – Third Grade – I am a creature from the white lagoon. The kids touch my light blond hair, helped along by Miss Magic Hair Color #9.  I like them, they like me. 

Country Public School – Third Grade- Still using #9. In a fit of wildness, a kid throws a chair at me. Being quite agile, I ducked, he ran. The class walked to a nearby farm where a student showed everyone a baby goat named after me. That’s the highest honor I’ve ever gotten in my life.

Suburban School – Grades 1, 2, 3, and 4.  Miss Magic easily survives economic vagaries. In science glass a student releases a gargantuan black spider causing panic, especially for me as I have arachnid-phobia. I remain upright, thus keeping my job. 

Private School – Grades 5, 6.   Must invest in Miss Magic. At the annual talent show a little Asian girl, dedicates her very practiced piano piece to me. The goat is finally beaten.

Retire – Grow wings and fly to Florida. Teach English to adult Latino immigrants. They ride bikes, smile with missing teeth, struggle with language.  A young man asks me the meaning of life. I must look like an old, frizzy haired, blonde Einstein. I feel honored, but really, the fucking meaning of life? I pass.

No official teaching. I spend more time with my husband, who couldn’t care less about the meaning of life. He’s obsessed with football, which makes sense, watching life’s struggles played out on a field. 

By now I’ve bought hundreds, maybe thousands of boxes of Miss Magic #9, a product which has easily weathered the economic downturn due to the pandemic. Over the years, it’s Magic has been a constant. After all, I can be forever blonde.