Irrelevant Cheetah

Anchorage recently entered the 20^th century by getting our own Target store. Since I’m home for the holidays, and since there’s a bit more Xmas shopping to do, and since I hadn’t seen the new store, the Wife, the Offspring and I headed down there last night to browse, look around, and generally pretend that the temperature outside wasn’t in the single digits.

So there I was, examining the hair-care products, struggling to remember what Barely Awake in Frog Pajamas had recommended for my conditioner. Something about cherry bark. And was it weevils? And that’s when I had my celebrity encounter.

Yup – Sarah Palin walked by. She was looking for a curling iron, towards which my wife helpfully directed her at the end of the aisle. She was with her daughter, Piper, and the only reason I know this is because Mrs. Palin addressed her by name as the two of them conferred over a possible hair-styling implement purchase. I honestly don’t know the names of her kids. There’s Piper and Bristol, right? And Pax? And Apple?

She was being tailed by one security guard, which seemed kind of odd to me – as if Target were offering some sort of token respect. After all, I don’t think she’s in danger of being assassinated (at least not here in her home state,) and if she were, I doubt that one underpaid mall cop would have been much help against a determined Al-Qaeda operative with a high-powered rifle and a grudge.

Anyway, that’s it. Nothing else to report. Later, as we browsed through the shoe section, I expressed a desire to go hurl some loafers at the governor, but luckily my wife nipped that idea in the bud. No telling what sort of fallout that might have incurred. She was being tailed by a security guy, after all.

Am I the only one who is intimidated by the task of choosing shampoo?

I swear, I start to have an anxiety attack the moment I notice that the bottle is becoming lighter. “Crap!” I mutter, shaking the bottle. “Not another trip down that aisle…”

You see, I am never more lost and confused than I am when I’m choosing shampoo.

For some reason, the hair care aisle in the store is terribly overwhelming. There are too many choices for a normal, sane individual – not to mention me.

First I have to choose a brand – not an easy task. Suave says that I can’t tell the difference between it and spendy shampoo. Pantene apparently repairs the hair shaft as it cleans, acting like a miniature follicle mechanic. Then there’s Vidal Sassoon, Paul Mitchell, Fructose… The list just goes on and on. I’m ashamed to admit that many times my choice of brand is dependent on price, which means that my personal style is economically-derived – not the most socially-acceptable admission for me to make.

Suppose I’ve finally chosen my brand. Now I’m faced with the daunting task of deciding which sort of shampoo I want. The kind that makes your hair shiny? Perhaps. Moisturizing? Quite possibly. Volumizing? No, that one’s out. (If there’s one thing my hair doesn’t need, it’s to be “volumized.”) Apparently, according to one bottle, my hair is thirsty. I didn’t know that. I’m now feeling pressured into giving my hair a “thirst-quenching experience.” And I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I tried one of the specialized shampoos – you know, the ones for blonde hair or brunettes or redheads. I have brown hair. I wonder what would happen if I used the shampoo specially designed for blondes. Would my hair turn blonde? Would I get blonde highlights? Would I then need to make the curtains match the drapes?

I also want to know if (and why) the advertised results are exclusive. For some reason, I have to choose between “moisturizing” and “shiny.” So I guess I’m either going to have either dry, shiny hair, or moist hair that resembles latex paint. Apparently, I can’t have both. All I know is that I don’t want my hair to be dull and lifeless. Because even though I know that my hair is lifeless, it’s anything but dull. It’s forever cracking jokes and one-liners, keeping up its end up of the conversation. Honestly, it’s like having a party on my head, all day long, every day.

And then there’s the huge issue of brand matching: if I buy Pantene shampoo, do I need to buy Pantene conditioner? It recommends it on the bottle: For best results, use with Pantene brand conditioner and styling products. What if I don’t? Will there be some horrendous chemical reaction due to incompatible shampoo and conditioner ingredients? Will my head explode? Or worse – will I go bald? And for that matter, what are “best results,” anyway? What if I’m okay with sub-par results? I mean, really, my hair’s getting clean either way, isn’t it?

I suppose if I wanted truly sub-par results, I could clean my hair with a handful of rocks. That might solve the brand problem, though I can’t imagine it would do much for my dandruff. I could shave my head as well, but I’ve already determined that probably wouldn’t be a great idea.

So I suppose I’m stuck with choosing shampoo. If anybody’s got some Valium they’d be willing to share, I’d appreciate it.

Why is that everywhere I turn for the last few days I’m bombarded with reports of Oprah’s recent weight gain?

As a nation, we haven’t been this obsessed with useless flab since we elected/re-elected Dubya.

Seriously, though… I don’t care. I don’t need to see reports of her weight on CNN, MSNBC, my news feed reader, and the tabloids in line at the grocery store. Is it really that important? Aren’t there far more important things that legitimate news organizations could be focusing on?

Enough already.

I’m not the best judge of people’s age, but he looked to be rounding forty and coming up fast on fifty. Gray streaked his temples, and his face hadn’t seen a razor in several days.

He was sitting by himself on the bus, and this was probably for the best, as he was rather portly, and sitting next to him would have been… uncomfortable. His hat sported the name of a popular brand of tractor, and he glared sullenly at those members of the public who boarded the #9 to Gresham, as though by doing so they had unwittingly disturbed his meditation and defiled his private area.

I noticed him as soon as I boarded – not because of any superhuman powers of observation on my part, but simply because the fact that I was looking for a seat had earned me an extra scowl. I found a seat, turned up the iPod, and watched out of the corner of my eye as other passengers were glowered at and then dismissed. People got on and got off, and Mr. Friendly gave each one in turn a dirty look. Young and old, men and women: none were spared his ire. I can only imagine what would have happened if somebody had attempted to sit next to him.

At last he stood to disembark, and it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

You see, our hero was short – about five and a half feet tall. This, in itself, is not funny. What was funny, however, was his outfit.

There is a fashion common among today’s youth that is lost on those of us over twenty-five. I speak, of course, of the tendency to wear jeans that are five sizes too large, such that the crotch of the jeans hangs around the knees and the general public is privy to what color boxer shorts the youth is sporting. Sometimes, for some reason, a belt is added to the ensemble but is not tightened, thus adding more weight to the waistband and further encouraging the inevitable slide downward.

Yes, you’ve probably guessed it. Our intrepid hero was wearing a pair of those five-sizes-too-large jeans, and the crotch, true to fashion, hung to his knees. As the middle-aged gentleman stood, pointlessly pulling up his pants, the low crotch, combined with his short stature and overlarge waistline, gave the impression that his legs were about eighteen inches long. The mental image I got – and still have to this day – was that Humpty Dumpty had boarded the #9 after a three-day drinking binge.

Despite my best efforts, I know I was smirking. Does that make me a bad person?

As you may or may not have realized, one of the reasons I’m going back to school is to learn to build robots so I can construct a robot army to enable me to take over the world.

It seems that, as an INTJ, I am not alone in dreaming of world domination; we tend to keep blogs, and we tend to post our plans on said blogs, thus lowering our chances for success unless it’s in a rousing game of Risk™. However, I trust that readers of the Cheetah will keep prior knowledge of any takeover attempts to themselves, if only because admitting in public that you read Irrelevant Cheetah is a sure way to commit social suicide.

So where was I? Oh, yes. I was about to say that the other day I had an epiphany. At first I thought it was just a common garden-variety idea, and that it would go away with the help of some beer and pretzels, but the more I considered it, the more I realized that I was staring right in the face of a genuine epiphany. And that epiphany was this:

If you’re an up-and-coming supervillain, and you have plans to take over the world, it would behoove you to not make your stage entrance in a city known for its superhero activity.

In other words, if you are the Mole Man, and you would like to enslave all surface-dwellers to do your bidding, it probably won’t be a good idea to surface for the first time in Metropolis.

Likewise, the Evil Electric Eel would be well-advised to stay away from Gotham City, at least until he gets his crime-legs. New York is off limits, and it’d be smart to stay away from Smallville as well. In fact, a budding criminal would do well for him/herself to do a little Googling and find out if the planned city of entrance has had any reports of some idiot running around in tights. Even if the idiot is a brand new superhero, brand new superheroes probably have something to prove, and thus could make formidable opponents. I might laugh at Dryer Lint Boy, but when he hits me with a good static electricity charge and knocks out my robot controls, I won’t be laughing any more.

I know, it seems obvious now that I’ve pointed it out, but little things like that can derail an entire domination scenario, and it’s the little things that are often overlooked.