LITTLE TREATS WITH BIG REWARDS

Sometime ago, I told myself to do something brave whenever I turned a year older. I am not talking about bungee jumping or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, as I would not have a heart or mind strong enough for either. Instead it is one of the little treats that you have always wanted to pamper yourself with but never got around to it.

So I went to the hair salon.

Normally I would just nip in and out for a quick trim but this time I sat there patiently for three hours armed with a good book and a small flask of hot Ipoh White coffee.

Ah, treats! The joy of having one. Truth be told, the woman  usually puts others first before themselves – the husband, the child, the mother or the father. So for a change, she is doing something for herself. It is lovely when the carer is being cared for.

Parents are strange creatures.

Maybe not all, but I am certainly one who has no qualms about saving and spending millions on my children’s education or well being but when it comes to having an occasional splash on myself, I think twice or even thrice. I evaluate and re-evaluate. I find excel spread sheets, the law of diminishing returns and a whole gamut of economic theories flash before my eyes all at one go. Now that the children are grown, I have learnt to go ahead and do that something for myself or buy something that might cost a little.

That got me thinking, when was the last time we treated ourselves to something flippant and harmless, something that we had been thinking about for a while?

Like buying a whole 8 inch pavlova with summer fruits and eating it up all by yourself over a few days? I did just that once and felt so greedily good (although I did promise myself to go the gym after that and whether I went or not did not matter).

Little treats act as good therapy. I certainly recommend this and it beats paying money to lying on the couch and having someone listen to your problems, that is, if he is actually listening at all.

An Irish writer whom I met once said he decided to see a therapist because he was feeling low. He divulged all his problems and the therapist answered with words like…….Umm, Ahh, I see and What do you think you should do? The writer went away thinking that it would have been better if he had remained home, kept the money and talked to the mirror instead. I thought that was funny.

So back to the hair salon.

In between sipping the coffee and poring over the pages, I observed the other customers.

Everyone seemed to know everyone. Regulars, I thought. They had their hair cut, teased, blown, washed and shaped in curlers, clips and some other contraptions.

I found myself having to sit for a short while under a hot dome-like hair dryer, like a potato being roasted to perfection, but I did not mind at all, because I knew in the hands of a professional, I would turn out, well, perfect!

The things that ladies go through for the sake of beauty.

When it was all done, I walked home feeling a million bucks. Then I waited for the beloved’s reaction. He looked. He stared. And then he finally let go of one word,

Wow.

Not too bad for a flaming red head, I thought.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY NEW STRAITS TIMES : 5 JULY 2015

http://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/little-treats-big-rewards

 http://digital.nstp.com.my/nst/books/150705nstnews/index.html#/23/