Why you shouldn't play with your food

Two weeks ago, I bought four avocados with the best intentions.

Well, maybe not the best intentions, which would probably involve something sexy and illegal in 25 states. If you're aware of any illicit avocado activities, please share them so I can expand my repertoire.

But I digress.

I bought the avocados because they were on sale, and I love having them for salads and guacamole. But a busy work schedule got the best of me, and I wound up with a lone avocado going brown and flaccid on my kitchen counter. I knew it was too far gone to eat, so I was delighted when I stumbled across an article touting the beauty uses for avocado.

The article instructed me to mash the avocado with some honey and olive oil, rub it into my damp hair, and let it sit for 20-30 minutes before rinsing it out to reveal soft, lustrous tresses. I followed the preparation directions, then marched upstairs with my bowl to join my gentleman friend in the shower.

"What is that?" he asked, staring in horror at the bowl of brown goo.

"It's natural hair conditioner," I informed him.

"It smells like rotting guacamole."

"It's sorta that, too. But I'm pretty sure I picked out most of the mold."

"There was mold?"

I peered down at the bowl. "The article didn't say anything about mold. Maybe there's a fine line between 'overripe avocado' and 'rotten avocado.'

"I don't think it's such a fine line."

I shrugged and stepped to one end of the shower, leaving my gentleman friend to lather and rinse beneath the spray. I began to massage the goop into my hair, an arduous task considering the length of my hair and the fact that the avocado mess was really more of a chunky soup than a creamy paste.

I was just finishing the application when I looked up to see my gentleman friend staring.

"What?" I asked.

"It looks like someone had explosive diarrhea all over the shower."

I looked around me, then down at the shower floor. He had a point.

"So you're saying you don't find this sexy?" I asked. "You don't want me to have beautiful, luxurious hair for you?"

"Maybe not if you're going to smell like regurgitated salad."

"I'm pretty sure it'll rinse out."

It turned out I was wrong on that count. Since I abhor using a hair dryer and prefer to go to my day job with damp hair, it wasn't until almost noon that I looked in a mirror and realized my hair was still wet. Upon closer inspection, I realized my hair wasn't actually wet. It was greasy. The sort of greasy you can only achieve if you dip your head in a bucket of motor oil and swirl it around for an hour.

I quickly slicked my hair into a bun and checked to be sure I didn't have any important meetings that afternoon.

"I've never seen you wear your hair like that," remarked one of my co-workers a few minutes later.

Anyone else remember the Robert Palmer girls?

Her tone was politely neutral, but I didn't get the sense she was impressed.

"Do I look kinda like one of the Robert Palmer girls?" I asked.

"Is that what you're going for?"

"Not really. I'm just wondering if I can pull this off as a hairstyle instead of a really big mistake."

She frowned. "Is someone eating guacamole?"

So that concluded my experiment with food items as beauty products. I won't rule out the possibility of future endeavors with cucumbers or maybe bananas, but they're not getting anywhere near my head.