Shades of Grey

I was in the grocery store checkout lane the other day, when the cashier started chatting with me. After the usual pleasantries, she asked, "You're still in your 20s, aren't you?" with a wave to my greying hair. Overlooking my emphatic, "I wish!" she went on to tell me how she started greying prematurely in the fourth grade (my hair, at least, waited until I was 21) and we commiserated about going grey before our time. Bless that cashier for being kind enough to think I was still in my 20s. ;)

Of course, that inadvertent compliment was somewhat overshadowed by something my own son said a couple nights later. I was reading Max a bedtime story, when he reached up, patted my head, and sadly said, "Hair all grey, Mama. Hair all grey." I didn't even know he knew the color grey, since that isn't one we practice. Thanks kid!