By Jane Woods
“I’m telling you, there are times when I’m just at my wits
end,” JoAnne DeSoto said to the woman who sat under the next dryer.
“I know exactly where you’re coming from,” Mrs Columbo agreed.
“At least, Roy doesn’t insist on wearing a disgusting old trenchcoat
and smoking cigars.”
“Luckily cigars make Roy sick -- oops that didn’t sound very
sympathetic, did it?” JoAnne giggled.
“Count your blessings on that one,” Mrs Columbo laughed. “That
and the fact that firemen don’t feel the need to have a lucky
trenchcoat on duty with them for 20 years.”
“Well, there’s no one more superstitious than firemen but if they
have lucky articles of clothing they stay at the fire station. I can see
how that coat could really be a problem.”
“I’ve tried everything!” Mrs. Columbo was exasperated.
“I’ve thrown the darned thing out four times but he just digs it
out of the trash. I guess the smellier it is, the luckier it is. I’m
sure the criminals can smell him coming a mile away. I even-- and I
shouldn’t admit this to the wife of a fireman but I even tried to burn
the fool thing. It wouldn’t burn! And the dog. Don’t get me going
on that fool mutt.”
“Our dog is pretty useless too but the kids love him. Although, he is
one more creature to clean up after,” JoAnne sighed.
“We never had any kids -- think the cigar and the trenchcoat had something
to do with that,” Mrs Columbo laughed wickedly.
“The kids aren’t too much trouble -- at least the first two
aren’t. Sometimes Roy’s partner is the biggest kid we have. If
he wasn’t so darned cute and sincere, I’d have run him off years
ago,” JoAnne vowed.
“What you need to do is get the partner married off.”
“Don’t think I haven’t tried! He has a lot of potential but
is he ever a diamond in the rough. He gets around a female and the word
‘predator’ practically pops out on his forehead. I mean he’s
that clueless!”
“No class, huh? Well our husbands were no gems when we got ahold of
them either but they’ve turned out okay. What’s the matter with
girls today? No sense of adventure?”
“Too much sense of adventure, I’d say,” JoAnne disagreed.
“It’s the 70's they want it all. All the good parts of having a
man in their lives with none of the responsibilities.”
“Yeah. They want the sex without having to pick up the dirty socks,”
Mrs Columbo sighed.
“Sex? That word sounds vaguely familiar......Maybe it’s time to
take that young lover I told Roy I was going to take.”
“You did what?! What did he say?”
“Same thing he always says when he’s watching the ball game.
‘That’s a good idea, Honey’.”
“Don’t you just love that selected hearing loss men get after they
walk down the aisle? Selected memory loss too. If I hear ‘oh just one
more thing’ one more time, I’m going to scream!”
“Men! You can’t live with them, you can’t leave them tied
to a tree in the woods!” JoAnne exclaimed.
“Unless you supply plenty of beer and the TV,” sighed Mrs. Columbo.
“They probably wouldn’t even notice then. .”
“Until they wanted you to find something. Do they think that women are
born with a built in tracking device? I remember one day I was up to my armpits
with laundry. I was trying to toilet train Chris, you know, the sink the
cheerios routine, when suddenly he slipped. He fell forward, hit the plate
where the toilet attaches to the floor and ended up with a nose bleed. My
daughter was home from kindergarten with the chicken pox and they were at
their itchiest stage. I felt like a yoyo running around trying to take care
of everything and Roy asks me if I knew where his drill was. I mean would
I have been using it? Ever. I didn’t know where it was
only where I wished it was at that very moment and I told him so! And he
looked so completely bewildered,” she laughed.
"It almost makes you want to jump into a starship and go to some other quadrant
of space where women could be in charge," Mrs Columbo complained, joining
in the laughter. Suddenly the door to the salon opened and Dixie McCall walked
in for her 3:00 appointment.
“Look, there’s Dixie. Come on over here once you’re shampooed,
Dixie,” JoAnne called.
Dixie waved in agreement.
“That girl definitely needs more pointers if she’s ever going to
snag Dr Brackett,” Mrs. Columbo stated flatly.
“And join us in the state of wedded bliss,” JoAnne agreed
solemnly.
“Misery loves company,” Mrs. Columbo giggled.
Suddenly the stylist was spraying someone's new do when the person in the next chair lit a cigarette. With a whoosh a ball of flame erupted. The stylist jumped back and her customer jumped up with a scream. Panic was on the verge of erupting when Detective Columbo walked through the front door to pick up his wife.
Mrs. Columbo ran to him and yanked the trenchcoat right off of him. She then tossed it to JoAnne, who skillfully threw it over the potted plant which had just caught fire. The filthy trenchcoat smothered the flame consuming the plant completely.
JoAnne then grabbed the sprayer from the shampoo sink and dowsed the rest of the sparkes which were trying to ignite the vinyl chair that the customer had vacated in the nick of time.
Mrs. Columbo was trying to organize an evacuation of the salon. She wasn't having any luck as the women in various stages of having their hair cut, colored or permed refused to be seen "in public" that way. The women whose faces were covered with gooey facial masks agreed wholeheartedly. "You're a cop. Order these people out of here!" Mrs. Columbo commanded her husband who was scratching his head taking in the whole scene.
Roy arrived to pick up JoAnne at that moment and she implored him to do something. The shop owner had called the Fire Department who arrived along with a TV news crew. The fire was now out. The responding fire company saw Roy and credited him with putting it out. Lt. Columbo was also praised by the reporter for helping avert disaster and saving the lives of all the women at the shop. The women went back to getting their hair done as the salon had a schedule to keep.
JoAnne and Mrs. Columbo walked out of the shop just as the reporter was winding up his interview with all the men who had been such heroes. When the interview was over, Mrs. Columbo followed her husband and his dog to their car.
JoAnne joined to Roy who was patting his pockets in search of his keys. "The jacket pocket," JoAnne told him without even looking at him. Roy was right. She did always know where things were, she realized. Let him take the credit for putting out the fire, she'd just convince him that she was just too rattled to cook dinner tonight. After all, she'd just had her hair done. What was wrong with a night on the town? A little reward for an invisible hero. She could ply the kids with fast food and get a sitter for them. Johnny probably wasn't busy.