My advice for wacky fun:

Make friends with the WalMart Customer Service Desk workers. They have the BEST stories.

Today I heard about a customer who attempted to return an empty bottle of lotion, her Reason For Return starting out as "the plastic bottle was defective and the lid came off by itself and it spilled out" and when the manager inspected the bottle and found nothing wrong with it, her story became "it must have evaporated". This same customer had once attempted to "return" a magazine. The magazine had a torn mailing address label on it.

WalMart kinda set themselves up to be challenged on returns with what used to be an unbelievably lenient return policy, but apparently too many people abused it, and now they're layin' the smack down. No, you can't return an empty bottle of lotion or a magazine that you've subscribed to. Sorry. I think I might actually kinda like the job of WalMart Customer Smackdown Agent.


And, moving on, have you ever been in a strange situation where you think of an Old Wives' Tale/Home Remedy that applies, but you can only remember part of it? Or maybe more of a Half-Remembered Hints From Heloise kind of thing?

Let me set it up -

On Wednesday I got my hair cut for the first time since Memorial Day. I hate spending $40 for a haircut, but she made my hair look pretty good, and I was happy with it. Fast forward to the end of the day when I fell asleep without washing it. Thursday morning was aerobics and I got up and put on my outfit thinking I'd take a shower when I got back. Well, instead I ran a whole bunch of errands and came home to chill for a bit until I realized it was time to go pick up the food we ordered for Market Day at Beeb's school.

I didn't really have time to take a shower and wash, dry, and attempt to style my hair, so here's where my brain thinks it remembers hearing or reading something about how when you don't have time to wash your hair and it's starting to look a lil greasy, you should sprinkle cornstarch in it.

WHY did this enter my mind as a feasible solution? Is there even the tiniest bit of truth to it? Is it a valid Heloise Hint or an Old Wives' Tale/ Home Remedy or am I combining totally unrelated remedies or something? WHY did I think this would work? I have no idea. But I convinced myself it would. I took a teaspoon and sprinkled it, a little at a time, into the part of my hair, where it looked the slimiest.

The best I can come up with as far as the chronology of my thinking process, is that I thought baby powder would work, then I realized I have no baby powder, and immediately I remembered seeing Cornstarch as a key ingredient in baby powder.

So I think that must be how my brain got from point A to point B, only the thought took place subconciously in the blink of an eye, before I had time to pass it through my "logic" filter, which, granted, isn't 100% accurate anyway. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but now, looking back, I can't believe I thought it would work.

You probably know what cornstarch does to gravy, right?

It turned the part of my hair, which maybe didn't look that bad to begin with, into a gunky white mess. Remember Bride Of Frankenstein? Yeah. And now that I'd wasted the time sprinkling baking products into my scalp, I had even less time to make myself presentable. So I ended up doing what I should have done in the first place.

I put on a damn HAT.

So today I went online to research this Questionable Home Remedy, to see if I could figure out why I even thought of it. Apparently, cornstarch works as a dry shampoo FOR DOGS. It can also be used to get serious grease like Vaseline out of your hair, but you have to WASH IT OUT. That's the part I forgot. Plus, my hair wasn't seriously greasy to begin with, so it really didn't even warrant a cornstarch treatment anyway. I'm an idiot.

Bonus: Cornstarch Tip from hairboutique.com:

Store some cornstarch in a glass jar in your bathroom. Keep in mind that cornstarch can be messy. Use as little as possible. Pour a little cornstarch into a saucer. Dip the tips of your fingers in the powder and then dab on the oily areas of your hair. Fluff gently. Use a paddle brush to remove. Don't forget to rinse the brush after use.

Cornstarch or any dry shampoo can be very messy. Remember that a little bit goes a long way so limit your use of the powder as much as possible.

I tried the fluffing thing. Didn't try a paddle brush.

Turns out, cornstarch also works well as a home remedy for JOCK ITCH. Duly noted.


And finally, in Celebrity Duets News:

Caroline has left the City.