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“Todd? Can you come here?”
Todd lumbers into the bathroom as she turns away from the mirror and looks at him. There’s a vanilla lavender candle burning next to the sink as John Mayer’s Battle Studies plays from her iPad mini resting atop her toilet. Todd can sense something is wrong just by the look on her face. He immediately started thinking of excuses to go home and re-watch some back episodes of The Sopranos rather than spend his Sunday night fielding questions about his upcoming work week.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asks with a puzzled look on her face.
Todd’s face, blank with confusion, has no idea what the right answer is. Is she looking for a compliment? Is she testing him? Is he supposed to be completely honest?
“Babe, you look great,” Todd responds with extreme hesitation not knowing what she actually wants to hear.
“Fuck you, Todd. I look like shit. My face is puffy and hungover. I’m dressed like I just woke up in a gutter. And my hair is goddamn rat’s nest.”
Confused, Todd does the only thing he can think of and goes in for a hug. He wonders if this is just a bad case of the Sunday Scaries or if he’s really dating a girl this unstable. She buries her face into his shoulder as he tells her it’s all going to be okay before mouthing, “What the fuck?” to himself.
“Maybe you just need some time alone, we’re both tired,” he whispers to her. After all, the happy hour for Megan’s birthday the night before spiraled out of control when they all drunkenly Uber’d to a club downtown where Todd managed to spend $150 on vodka-sodas for everyone trying to make a good impression.
“You’re right, baby. Let’s take the night off and do us.”
Todd scampers out the door and immediately hops in an Uber Black Car to his apartment.
Meanwhile, she changes out of her oversized Notre Dame Football t-shirt and into one of Todd’s buttondowns and dims the lights in her living room. She turns the television on and defaults immediately to Netflix where she picks up where she left off on the second season of New Girl. And upon seeing Zooey Deschanel talking with a weird inflection in her voice about not understanding men, it clicks: she needs bangs.
The rationalization seems simple: her spring wardrobe is getting nothing but compliments, her body is reaping all the benefits of her ClassPass, but she still feels as though the puzzle isn’t completely put together. So what better solution is there other than to try out a new hairstyle? A bob could take too long to correct, and she’s not willing to trade her trademark brunette for any other color, so what other options is she left with outside of bangs?
She leans forward and grabs her phone, scrolling down to “Hair Girl” with the hair flip emoji next to it. She immediately starts typing with fervor: “Theresa, I’m having a hair emergency. What’s your schedge tomorrow?”
They work out the details, and she texts her boss letting her know that she’ll be late for work the next day due to unforeseen circumstances.
“I’m going to look amazing,” she thinks to herself as she dozes off on the couch with Sperry snuggled underneath her arm.
Monday at work is winding down, and she sits at her desk sending out some last minute emails before her coworker, Jane, approaches and asks if she’d like to grab a drink after work to “catch up” because she “misses her face.” Declining because she’s already going to happy hour with Todd, they reschedule for Wednesday when Todd’s playing in his golf league.
“Miss your face!” she says as she walks out the door with a newfound confidence derived directly from the bangs Theresa crafted that morning. Sixpence None The Richer’s “There She Goes” might as well be playing as the wind trickles through the four inches of hair covering her once boring forehead while trotting down the sidewalk. Walking by the window of O’Leary’s Pub, she sees Todd sitting alone at a two-top casually sipping a beer while scrolling though emails. Positive he’ll love her new surprise look, she makes a grand entrance.
“Oh, hey, what’s up?” Todd asks as she sits down at the table.
“Notice anything different about me?” she digs as Todd hard gulps because he wasn’t expecting a pop quiz.
“Yeah, totally, uh, is that a new top?” he stumbles while her hopeful smile turns into pursed lips and a furrowed brow that goes unnoticed because of the bangs that Theresa may or may not have left too long. He takes a sip of his beer knowing that he’s on the verge of getting lectured.
“Bangs, Todd. I got bangs.”
He wants to punch himself in the balls because it was so blatantly obvious, but all he can do now is try to pass it off as a joke, as if he knew all along and pass this awkwardness off as a ruse he’d been planning since he saw her looking at him through the bar window. She sits there silently as he vomits apologies in an effort to not make things into a “thing.”
“You look great!” and “I love them!” are spewed out, one after another, but nothing seems to be working. He’s grasping at straws at this point in hopes she’ll relinquish, but all the kind words in the world won’t fix the mess he’s found himself in. In an effort to change the subject, he says something that he immediately regrets — “Yeah, so, my parents are coming to town this weekend.”
A smile appears on her face as she sits up in her chair and straightens her shoulders. “He’s asking me to meet his parents,” she thinks to herself as Todd attempts to explain that they’ll be busy all weekend without her, but it goes in one ear and out the other.
Realizing it’s an uphill battle and he just needs to bite the bullet, he sighs and asks her the only question she wants to hear.
“Do you want to go to dinner with them on Friday?” .
Image via Shutterstock
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
@willdefries
@willdefries
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RIP Todd.
These articles make me sad for Todd
Never stop writing these.
“She buries her face into his shoulder as he tells her it’s all going to be okay before mouthing, “What the fuck?” to himself.” – I find myself in this situation entirely too often. I feel you, Todd.
Todd, noooo.
Just wait til Todd sees her wedding Pinterest board.
Am I the only one who pictured her as a blonde and not a brunette? This changes things
I imagined her as a brunette with ombre hair that fades into blonde, she knows it’s kind of 2013 but she gets too many compliments on it to give it up.
Nope, she is definitely a brunette. We blondes have more finesse.
I don’t think you know what finesse means.
Am I the only one who is surprised she still has her dog?
Todd can buy all the drinks in the world, but he’s not fooling me.
I don’t see any future where this ends well for our boy Todd.
He could die. Given the circumstances, I would consider that a win for him.