Newfie June - The Neighbourhood Beauty

These hot summer days have reminded me of an incident that took place in my neighbourhood, several years back.

It was mid-June and we were having a real hot spell. The temperature had reached mid-thirties or higher every day over the preceding three weeks. The children were all out of sorts. School was almost out for the summer…but not quite. Youthful exuberance abounded and all of us parents were driven to distraction trying to convince them to "hang on"…summer holidays were coming.

We live in a cul-de-sac and the guy who lived directly across the street had finally succumbed to his son's pleadings for a basketball net on the driveway. Instead of just hanging a net over the garage door, our neighbor was doing it properly. He was going to cement in a pole to attach the net, so that it would be regulation height. As I arrived home from work one afternoon and pulled into my driveway, I waved to him as he continued to dig the hole on the side of his drive. I could see the sweat glistening off his bare back as he swung the pick-axe. I usually arrived home from work before my husband did and, since we had been invited out that night, I was going to claim the bathroom first and start getting ready. I looked at my hair in the bathroom mirror and decided that I needed to touch-up the dye job on my roots. I had already purchased the dye but had been having trouble finding time to get around to it. No time like the present, so I stripped off my clothes, put old towels down on the floor and proceeded to apply the rows of hair dye to the roots of my hair. For some strange reason, I always start at the top of my head, so I had just applied the first few rows of the white mousse, Mohawk-fashion, along the top of my head, when I heard my husband arrive home and call out hello.

I could hear hubby setting down his briefcase when, suddenly, the doorbell started ringing. There was urgency in the ring…the bell was being repeatedly jabbed…something was wrong. I could hear my husband's footsteps in the hall and then an excited voice, but I couldn't hear what was being said. Next thing I knew, my husband was calling out that the neighbour across the street had collapsed and we had been asked to assist. He told me I had better come in case I was needed. My husband is a physician and I am a nurse, so we get called upon whenever anything "medical" happens in the 'hood.

I was in quite a predicament. I had to put on some clothes but I didn't want to get hair dye on anything good, as it would get stained and ruined. I grabbed a really old, bleach-stained housecoat from the closet, wrapped it around myself and headed down the stairs. I shoved my feet into the first pair of shoes of mine at the door, and headed out. Don't ask me why I didn't just run out barefoot. We do strange things when in a hurry. I dashed across the street and there was my poor neighbour, who had been digging the hole for the basketball hoop, lying on the ground in the throes of a full-blown Grand Mal seizure. My husband had things under control but I made sure the ambulance had been called and tried to calm his poor, frantic wife.

The seizure had started to subside when we heard the wail of the sirens approach. Our city, like many others, had adopted a first-response policy the year before. When you called for an ambulance, you often got a response from the Fire Dept. and the Police as well. All were trained in advanced first aid so they could help until the Paramedics arrived. In this instance, they all arrived within two minutes of each other. Our little cul-de-sac was full of emergency vehicles and, because it must have been a slow day, no one seemed to want to leave. We had the crews from two fire trucks and two police cars all milling about with all of the concerned neighbours, while the Paramedics loaded the patient onto the gurney.

With the urgency of the situation settling down, I took a look around and I noticed a couple of young firemen eying me suspiciously. No…trust me…I wasn't being sized up. This was a really odd look. Then reality set in and I dashed back into my house. In the hall mirror before me, I could see myself as they had. My old, tattered, knee length housecoat was paired wonderfully with the high-heeled dress shoes that I had shoved on my feet. The rows of mousse-dye on my hair had turned black as it coloured so I had this black Mohawk sticking straight up from the top of my head and to make matters slightly worse, I had put some colour foam on my eyebrows as well (so they would match my hair colour, of course). There they were as two big black streaks across my forehead. No wonder the firemen had been staring at me…they probably thought I was the cause of the poor man's collapse…. one look at the Medusa-like neighbour and the poor guy seized as he turned to stone!

Well, our neighbour was, thankfully, just fine. He had been in the intense heat too long and not drinking enough fluids. We all got a great laugh out of my experience in the years to come. I was dubbed, tongue in cheek, as the "neighbourhood beauty". I wonder what the firemen's version of the story was when they returned to the stationhouse that afternoon. I just bet the word beauty was not to be heard!

© Newfie June




Send comments to: Newfie June

If you have any ideas how to make our country better - Send your comments to: Canadian Ideas
Thanks for your help
best regards
www.CanadianCulture.com

Get Involved!
Your Ideas are Important!
Content is contributed by various Canadians and does not necessarily reflect the views of canadianculture.com.