wella #57, "dark golden brown"

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if you had told me last week i'd be siding with abercrombie & fitch on any issue whatsoever this week, i'd have sprayed you with the spittle of my scornful laughter.

but, alas, you'd have been right.

seems some lil' ol' gal [this happened in oklahoma, so i'm using the local parlance] applied for work at one of their stores, only to be told that the hijab she insisted upon wearing--you know, that headscarf them muslims make their womenfolk wear--was, to say the least, incompatible with their "look" policy and thus did not fit the store's image.

so what did she do? well naturally, this being america and all, she sued--i mean, how dare they interfere with her right to work wherever the hell she wants and on whatever terms she sees fit?

while i'm almost tempted to throw abercrombie to the wolves for being stupid enough to tell her the real reason they weren't hiring her hijab'd, ethnic ass to work in their lily-white store--thus handing her the loaded gun with which she turned around and shot 'em--i ultimately have to go with what i believe is right and fair in situations like this.

[i would also question why such a devoutly-religious muslim would want to work for the kind of decadently western company that would run an ad such as the one i've featured at the top of this post, but i guess that's a topic for another day.]

see, i'm one of those people who believe that, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, business-owners should, within limits prescribed by our anti-discrimination laws, be able to hire and fire whomever the hell they feel will best serve the needs of their businesses--and this one is so far beyond the goddam pale that it should've immediately been thrown out of court.

and lest you think i'm merely some ranting, angry middle-aged white guy who's never found himself in such a situation as did this young lady, i offer up for your consideration the following story.

picture it: west hollywood, 1991

shortly after hitting town at the advanced age of 34 to begin my long-delayed life of gay debauchery, i applied for a job as a waiter at a little sidewalk cafe in the heart of boystown called 'the greenery'--the kinda place where the waiters wore tight white shorts, matching polos and tiny green aprons. there was an after-bar shift available, which seemed like a good way to both make a little money and put myself out there.

when i handed him my application, the manager looked me up and down, said "yeah, you'll do." as i started to thank him, he cut me off with

"as long as you understand you gotta lose the gray between now and the time you start."

it took me a minute to realize he was talking about my hair.

wow, blatant, outrageous, ugly ageism staring me in the face. time to work myself up into a fine froth of righteous indignation and call a lawyer, right?

nah. i thought about it a minute, did the pleasure-pain equation, called a recent hookup who was a stylist at jose eber, picked up a toothbrush at the drugstore and the requisite hair-color crap he instructed me to get at the beauty-supply place, stopped by his apartment for a lesson in the subtle art of male hair coloration [for which he was compensated handsomely, if you get my drift], and breezed into my first day of work at my new job looking natural as all hell if i do say so myself.

did i want to adapt to my new boss's standards? not particularly--i had always prided myself on being a minimal-upkeep kinda guy, and this sudden new hair-color regimen was gonna be nothing if not an ongoing high-maintenance pain in the ass.

the more important question is, did i dispute his right to make the demand in the first place?

hell, no. it was his business and he knew what made him money; the only question i had to grapple with was, did i want to work there badly enough to comply with his demand?

ultimately, i decided the pluses outweighed the minuses and did as he asked.

and please don't tell me that, in the overall workplace scheme of things, the above plaintiff's issue now is more important than mine was then --for my money, both are private concerns and shouldn't be corporate america's.