Mane & Tail

As well as ministering to patients needs much time at work is also spend talking. The nurses I work with are from various parts of the world – so I have over the years obtained a diverse, albeit somewhat obscure knowledge of life in the Philippines, India, Germany, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Always keen to embrace new cultures I enthusiastically devour pakora and all manner of other exotic delights (admittedly, perhaps this is motivated by greed rather than cultural enlightenment) and I have acquired an eclectic knowledge of useless words in various languages. However one thing I have been more reticent about trying is horse shampoo. For 4 years my Filipino colleagues have been looking at my much maligned hair, lifting up its limp strands and letting out sighs. They have not been shy in letting me know their despair. But Mane and Tail they said would be the answer to all my problems. Although I have to admit I have come to think that my hair is more of a problem to them than me. I am resigned I will never have beautiful, long, silky locks, Mane and Tail or not.

Still ,when one of my friends excitedly gave me a bottle of Mane and Tail they’d bought for me from the Philippines excitement took hold. Perhaps I would be soon joined the ranks of glossy manes afterall.

As to be expected Mane and Tail came in an unassuming bottle – no packaging pretences and did look as if it would be more at home in a tack room than at the end of my bath. Still, reassuringly, it did have instructions for human use on the bottle. Interestingly it looked and smelt like bog standard shampoo. The cynic in me thinking this was perhaps some double bluff marketing ploy.

So in I went to work this morning with my newly washed Mane and Tail hair. After 5 minutes of shaking my head around no one had noticed and I was getting despondent and dizzy. I then opted for the more direct approach asking them if it looked different. Apparently not, although they reassured me it takes more than one day, especially in hair of my condition.

Then.. shock horror, someone did comment on how nice my hair looked. Now obviously this could be a set up, but no, it was a doctor who had not been privy to the Mane and Tail saga. Basking in the unfamiliar glow of such comments I trotted off to my desk, giving my hair a little shake as I went. It was all I could do to stop myself whinnying.

Tomorrow brings day 2 of Mane and Tail. Perhaps by the end of the week I will have mane like hair. Though I’ve been thinking back to my days of horse riding. From what I remember manes were made of thick wiry hair. Is this really something I aspire to?