Ok, cats, throw your mittens around your kittens…

The other morning I was getting ready for work and feeling very tired. I reached for my deodorant and started spraying. I noticed a funny smell but kept spraying. Then I felt a stinging sensation. Then stickiness. I had accidentally sprayed hair spray all over myself! I ran into the bathroom, my arms flapping and my hands fanning my armpits. Scott just looked at me, shook his head and continued shaving. As if this sort of thing happens every day! There was no time to shower so I did my best to rinse off the layers of hair spray. Needless to say, I spent much of my day feeling very uncomfortable and very flammable.

Although it wasn’t a pleasant experience, my hair spray incident only made me more excited for this weekend. The opening of the 2007 version of Hairspray!

Growing up, my sisters and I alternated between watching Grease and Hairspray. Over and over again. This is after our Annie stage when we were no longer asking our dad to dance like Daddy Warbucks. We now had to make believe dance partners because nobody wanted to take the boy parts (although they always tried to make me) and we were getting too old to make our dad awkwardly dance next to us. We would sing and dance and act out scenes. We even had pink satin jackets and pretended to smoke cigarettes (made out of paper and colored red and orange on the ends).

Because of these movies, I was pretty much convinced high school would be one big musical number. I would get a boyfriend like Danny Zuko and we would dance together on the bleachers and go around the school cafeteria singing.

Of course, that never happened. But both films have stayed with me. I can watch them again and again. We actually saw Grease on stage in London in the early 90s. My dad waited in line all day (in the rain) for tickets and we ended up in one of the first few rows. It was even more amazing because Debbie Gibson was playing Sandy. And we loved Debbie! It is one of my favorite memories.

So when I heard they were making another Hairspray movie, I knew I would be seeing it. Scott, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure. He had never heard of it. I told him John Travolta was in it. And he likes Travolta because he is a pilot and has a private airport at his home in Florida.

Of course I didn’t mention Travolta was actually playing a woman in this particular movie…but…

Scott really had no choice anyway because last week we had to watch Die Hard 4.0 (Bruce is hot but not that hot) and next week we are going to see Transformers (with all the smelly thirteen-year-old boys.)

So he was totally due for a painful chick flick.

But guess what, he liked it! And of course, so did I.

It made me wish we could all just sing and dance together and right the wrongs of the world like they do. Who would have thought a movie called Hairspray could have so much deeper meaning?

As a kid, I never really understood what was going on in these movies. From the bigger issues like segregation and politics to the smaller ones like Zuko telling Rizzo to “Bite the weenie”and her response, “With relish.” What’s the problem? The girl likes hot dogs.

And even now, after watching it a zillion times, I still think to myself, aha, I get it now!

I’m going to end this entry because it’s late and if I don’t get to bed, I’ll be too tired in the morning and I might mistakenly pick up the wrong aerosol can.

But I leave you with this thought…

If only we could dance and sing our problems away. If only we knew all the moves. If only we could all play the part we wanted.

With relish.