In Which The Protagonist Gets a Bad Haircut

Well, at least it's shorter.

You know, Stephanie used to tell these little anecdotes about the difference between living in Dayton and the PNW, and I used to think they were terribly funny.

Her oft-repeated story is one in which she was sitting around with the other receptionists at her workplace and she used the word "egregious" in regular conversation.

"Egri... what?" one of them asked.

"Why do you use all of these big words?" they asked her after a few months. "Are you trying to sound smarter than us?"

They have since learned that they can ask Stephanie how to spell things like "side effects." She was also able to explain that "anxiety" isn't spelled with an "e."

I thought these were terribly funny stories.

At the salon today the stylist - a young 20-something woman - rang me up, and I asked her if she had any hypoallergenic styling products, since Ian is allergic to, well, everything.

"Hypo... what?" she asked.

I am officially in Dayton.