My wife has the most attractive hair. She wears it in tight braids that are long and reflect her Native American heritage. I adore looking at her, particularly when she smiles through those tight braids and her bright eyes shine like lights peeking through a beaded curtain.
My wife also has her hair done regularly at a shop that washes and braids her hair on a regular basis. And – while she and her hair stylist may smile – the cost of that work tends to make me frown somewhat. Even though I adore the final product, the fee charged tends to have a negative effect on the degree of my enjoyment.
So my wife and I developed a unique way of financing these regular treatments. We are both avid bowlers and belong to a local bowling league. Our policy was to pay one another the difference between our scores for each bowling match. She often scores in the high 170’s. I thought I’d score in the 180’s, so I gave her a ten-pin handicap to add to her score.
This turned out to be a strategic error on my part. It seems that before we’d met she had been a member of her high school bowling team. And that team finished fourth in state championship contests two years in a row. Meanwhile, I was busy specializing in trying to become a second-string first baseman on my college baseball team (I ended up working as a maintenance man for the ground crew at our ballpark). So for the first few years I found myself financing her hair treatments on a regular basis. But we had made the deal so I gritted my teeth and didn’t complain. But I did get in the habit of gong to the bowling alley alone regularly and practicing.
Gradually my score crept up to a point where we found that I wasn’t completely paying for her beauty visits. It was then when I learned that she had a surplus of funds that she accrued by saving on every hair treatment by using Groupons that saved her up to 70% off of various hair styling packages at various local beauty salons. Special styling, reconditioning, coloring, haircuts, and shampoos for less than $60 or $70 while I was thinking she was spending up to $200 at each visit. And she was furtively salting the difference away!
