Damn you, Operant Conditioning.
Just to provide you some insight before reading any further, my roommate is awesome. She is full of spunk and athletic prowess comparable to a hockey goalie, (also, those guys are super athletic) but has a girly streak that’s more like a highway… Let’s call her “Dabney.”
Now “Dabney” loves to wake up in the morning and shower, and blow dry her hair. In the beginning the noisy hair dryer would wake me up and keep me that way, but recently I noticed that after the sound wakes me, it actually soothes me and puts me right back to sleep. No big deal, right?
Well, the other day, my friend, let’s call her “Moriah,” came into the room to blow-dry her hair because her roommate was sleeping. Of course, I said yes, and let her come in as I surfed the internet.
I woke up on my keyboard. I then realized that I had been conditioned to fall asleep when hearing hair dryers, much like Pavlov’s dogs uncontrollably salivated when hearing a bell, upon hearing a blow dryer, I fall asleep, and also uncontrollably salivate (but that’s more a personal problem, really).
One of my pastimes is watching makeup tutorials on YouTube.com. (I swear this is pertinent.) Now, I don’t wear makeup, and I don’t really care about makeup,
but I am fascinated by the transformation of people through makeup, and how people who have almost no personality can become YouTube stars because they know the proper way to apply liquid eyeliner. The video I was watching on this particular day was one teaching me how to make my side swept bangs look like I lightly tousled them in 45 easy steps. At one point between teasing, combing, cutting, primping and ruining the ozone directly above Grove City through copious amounts of hairspray, I was instructed to use my hair dryer. I missed the last 32 instructions.
I didn’t think this was a big problem, but seeing it written in an article is actually making me think that there may be something wrong with me. I was like: this is hilarious! Who falls asleep to hair dryers??? This girl! How unique and rare! And that joviality has now turned into raw fear: Oh, God. I can’t get through anything if someone is drying their hair! What if I’m in the middle of a final and my professor needs to dry his hair? What then? How do you raise your hand and tell them that they can’t dry their hair in the middle of a final? I’m going to fail all my classes and my parents will force me to transfer to an extremely conservative Christian college. No, not again!!! Where is the line? Where did it go??
While this is incredibly daunting, I don’t think that this problem will have any effect on my professional life, unless I decide to work in a hair salon. I would write further on this subject but “Dabney” just started doing her hair.
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