The Late Night Run That Spoke Volumes

It was a Friday night where I had places to be, but not quite yet. I didn’t have a ton of time, so I was mapping out where I needed to go versus the time I had to accomplish it. The store in question wasn’t open much longer. Sure, if I drove NASCAR-style, I’d be fine. But there were variables I couldn’t control.

Once I heard from the variable, also known as a teen who we were providing transportation to, I had a limited window, and i went for it.

I reached the pharmacy twenty minutes before closing.

I scoured the shelves for my beloved products.

I found them, ran to the counter, paid, and felt glorious that I achieved my goal.

It was in the parking lot it dawned on me.

I used to run covert missions to Walgreens for chocolate like this.

Drug addicts probably feel this good about their score.

Me?

I just found two products I’d naively ran out of for my curly hair.

In the interim, I’d ran to closer pharmacies and tried both higher end and budget gels and mousses. I even tried a “hack” that sounded so weird, but curly girls swore it took away the frizz, so yep, grabbed that. Then day-after-day I watched my hair fail and fail miserably.

Was it the products? Was it the application? Was it all the medicine I was on for my bronchitis/sinus infection? Why weren’t my curls the juicy clumps I was finally starting to get before my products ran out?

It really did a number on my confidence.

By the fifth day, I was online researching how to get these products STAT. One wasn’t even available on Amazon, at least not for a realistic price. The mousse was, so I ordered. It wasn’t Prime, so it took longer to arrive.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

The Walgreens outside of Youngstown, twenty minutes away from the Walgreens I visit, carried both the serum and the mousse. Frizz Buster by Fantasia and Pantene Curl Defining Mousse. If I recall, FB is not officially “CurlyGirl” approved, but the other gels and hacks I used that were left my hair limp and frizzy. Same with the other mousses.

So now I’m back. Just when I think I’ve mastered a technique, I learn something new from the CG World (instagram and Reddit) or my hair just decides nope. I’m trying to decide if I keep trying wet plopping or shirt plopping. Do I keep roping or just go with scrunch out the crunch? There’s so much vocabulary in the Curly World, but I confess, I still spend less time than I did straightening, and my hair overall is healthier.

But, wow. I had no idea how deep the curly obsession was until I made that late night run to the pharmacy.