Your Friend Who Bleached Their Hair at 1 A.M. Wants You to Know "This Is Not a Cry for Help but Thanks for Asking"
As we near the middle of the semester, it's pretty obvious that everyone is starting to feel the weight of the semester slowly grind them down into a fine powder of stress, unread JSTOR articles and questionable decisions. Students all across campus have been getting all twist turned upside down with some self-destructive “uh-ohs” to let out some tension like getting Hepatitis C from jumping in the Recess pool, starting a fight with the Strozier Starbucks employees or starting a group text with every ex you’ve had since middle school. Luckily, your friend who you thought had it all together up until this point has found the perfect solution for dealing with that pressure in a way that any cognitive behavioral therapist would certainly discourage: spontaneously bleaching your hair at 1 a.m.
“It’s not a big deal, I’m literally fine. People keep asking if I’m ‘okay’ or have I ‘given this any thought past the immediate future,' but I’m doing so great right now," said the freshly bleached Mason Blanchard as he proceeded to look up a WikiHow tutorial on giving himself bangs after railing a line of bleaching powder. "My mom called me seventeen times just to say she didn't think it was a good idea. She doesn't fuck with the vision and I really don't need that kind of negativity in my life. I watched like six or seven recent Jenna Marbles videos before starting so I definitely knew what I was doing. Worst case scenario, I re-dye it until it’s brown again or just falls right out of my head. I’m not really worried about being bald because baseball caps are so in right now and I definitely have the cheekbones for it.”
“There was so much chaotic energy in the air. I thought there was a fire. He just kept saying over and over how great he felt about this idea and asked if I wanted to make a quick run to Sally Beauty. They aren’t even open this late but we raced down West Tennessee in his ‘03 Veloster at like 95 mph anyway,” said Molly Brunne, Mason’s roommate, awoken by the sound of shattering glass and the screaming match between her roommate and the Postmates driver delivering his Taco Bell. “I probably should have definitely not been an accomplice, but I liked the way I looked in the plastic gloves that came with the dying kit and honestly was a little high on the bleach fumes. When he started rinsing out all the dye and I could see the chemical burns on his scalp, I realized the full scope of the consequences of our actions. But, it also wasn’t my idea. I just like to enable people."
Whether or not his hair turns into straw is beside the point because Mason looks damn good for someone in the middle of a quarter-life crisis. Well, not a crisis, per se. He’s just working through a dangerous and upsetting trauma that also happens to be creative and fun; everyone should try to follow in his footsteps. It’s flirty, it’s fall, and it’s not a fucking cry for help so please stop asking!