Keeping it under wraps

My plan all along has been to keep my dreads on the down-low, like a business-owner friend of mine who has three locks hidden in the back of her hair.  Since I'm going for the full dread head, though, I'm finding that it's quickly becoming difficult.

Four days in (feels like forty), and a spike in temperatures has made me rethink my favorite hat.  Yesterday saw the mercury pass 80 for the first time this year, and I found my head was incredibly hot after a walk into town with the took on.  All winter I'd taken to wearing the hat at home (even while sleeping) as well as away, but I didn't see the point in that heat.

Today it's much cooler, in the 70s, and my head is on the warm side of comfortable.  The day started out cool and clammy in the house, which I like to counteract with a hot tub soak.  It felt great and completely energized me, so I wanted to run a few errands.  Wet dreads covered become mildewed stinky dreads, so I couldn't wear the hat out unless I waited for the locks to dry.

I had three errands:

Unedited, people look at me like this

1. Deposit checks at the bank
2. Pick up gardening supplies at Agway
3. Pick up a check from a client

The bank's drive-through ATM would be a snap.  I dismissed picking up the check until I could do so with a hat on, because even when I am seen in casual clothes I need to maintain a professional appearance.  This translates into a simple, clean profile, which is something my locks dread doing.  Locks are less flexible than strands of hair, so when they're short they tend to stick up.  The hat is training them to stay down, but when I palmroll them they spring up to attention again.  Nope, I was not picking up that check.

Agway was somewhere in the middle.  I would be out in public, but the onus of professionalism would not be upon me.  In fact, the employee I spoke to was very professional.  I had the feeling that people were looking at me strangely, but it was just my imagination.  Well, except in the parking lot, when the man getting out of the car next to mine allowed his eyes to drift slowly up to the crest at the top of my head.  I made a mental note to remember that driving with dreads could be grounds for being pulled over (now that racial profiling is mostly illegal), and drove cautiously away.