Why so curious, George?

In the 12.75 years that Mr. Jelly Belly and I have been married, he has never paid any attention whatsoever to my makeup or to my hair. He doesn't care what I have, what I use it for, or even how much I paid for it.

In case I’ve never mentioned it before, Mr. Jelly Belly is a man, so this is not really all that surprising to me.

In the thousands of trips we have made to Target together he has not so much as cast a sideways glance at what I am piling into the cart. He just doesn't care. So I was shocked about 3 weeks ago to turn around in the hair aisle and see him bent, almost in half, closely examining the hundreds of boxes of hair color on the lower shelves. When he saw me looking, he quickly grabbed a box of "New Penny Red" and offered it to me.

"What about this?" he asked.

"What about it?" I counter-asked.

"You should try this," he said, with a look that may have been fear on his face.

"Eh. Maybe."

Truth be told, I have been considering going red for quite some time. I am bored with the blonde and feel I am too old for it, anyway. Both my mother and my grandmother were redheads and, other than hair color, I look exactly like them. I think I have the facial coloring to pull it off, but when I've asked his opinion in the past, he has just grunted a non-committal response - which I took as a "No".

Every time we have been in a store since that first day in Target, I catch him eyeing up the hair color displays - and he has mentioned it again more than once. Dang. He really wants this. It is so unlike him to make a "request" like this, that I have decided I am going to do it.

I'm just wondering why all the sudden desire for a redheaded wife? Could it have something to do with the woman who makes his pants all hot, Nicole Kidman?



Or could it be Maureen O’Hara, beloved co-star of so many of his favorite John Wayne movies?



I don't know and I won't ask. If he was comfortable with telling me why, he would have said something already. If he wants to close his eyes in a passionate moment and pretend I'm Nicole, I'm okay with that. Because I'm for sure not telling him what's going on behind my eyelids.

Now I've just got to figure out why, right out of the blue, he asked me if I wear mascara.