RECENTLY I DYED MY HAIR BLOND. I wanted to see if I’d have more fun.

Before I went blond, I dyed my hair orange.

Actually, I paid someone a lot of money to dye my hair orange. That wasn’t my original plan. The stylist brought out various hair samples, telling me to pick the shade I wanted, and I thought, “Oh! How professional and skilled he is!” because, you see, I’m an excellent judge of people.

Then, when he finished and produced a mirror, my hair was orange.

But the stylist said, “It looks so beautiful! It’s blond!” And another stylist came over and said, “You look like you should be sitting on a beach in the sunshine!”

And the two of them fawned so much over my orange hair that I started to think, huh. Maybe I am blond.

Then, the stylist asked, “What do you think?” I should have mentioned the whole orange thing, then. But that’s not my style. I am one of those polite liars. I could never tell someone he did an awful job.

So I did what polite liars do. I said, “Love it!” and left a nice tip.

When I got home, I asked my husband, “Is my hair orange? It looks awful, doesn’t it?” But my husband is also a polite liar. This means that we never know what the other person really thinks, but we also never have anything to argue about.

So my husband looked me in the eye and said, “Not at all! Love it!”

For the record, I really like that he lied and told me he loved it. But, obviously, I still had no idea whether my hair was orange or blond.

There is, however, one group in society who is fearlessly honest, especially about appearance: teenagers. My most polite students said, “Oh. You dyed your hair.”

And I knew that was a bad sign.

Then I said, “I know. It’s orange.” And they said nothing.

I knew that was a bad sign, too.

My more forthright students said, “My mother owns a hair salon. She can fix that for you.”

So I got it fixed. This time, at a different hair salon, it was much easier. When the stylist asked, “What do you want?”, I said, “Not this.”

My expectations were lower, which almost always leads to satisfaction. I left with pretty close to blond hair.

Then I got pregnant, so I couldn’t touch up the roots, and I had to have half blond and half brown hair for a while. My students told me I was very trendy, and I know they weren’t lying, so I was happy, because, obviously, it’s the goal of my life to be trendy.

And what did my husband think of my half sort of blond, half brown hair?

He loved it.

Do blonds have more fun? I’m not sure, but I do know this: Orange-haired people have no fun at all.

Kirstin Odegaard runs the Benicia Tutoring Center. Read and comment on her writings at www.kodegaard.com.