Girls and their Hair

I went to the salon the other day to get a long overdue color and haircut session. My hair had become sadly mop-like. Not the kind of mop leaning against your kitchen wall, but the kind that was tossed out with yesterday’s dinner, and had been chewed on diligently by cats. While my misshapen head was busy with the work-gym-home routine, I had forgotten about a woman’s need to maintain her hair, and the wonders that it does for the soul. It’s true. It really brings you back to life.

So I booked an appointment, but not with my usual hair dresser, because he was on vacation. I sneakily requested his competitor, who I had heard did a fabulous job. You may ask, why I don’t go to the better one anyway, and I’ll try to explain the strange loyal relationship a girl has with her hairdresser. Cheating on your hairdresser is only a tiny bit less serious than adultery. There’s this guilt of choosing the other guy at the salon, when he has stood by you and your thinning, oily scalp all these years, telling you your hair is absolutely gorgeous.

I could never face him sitting on the other side of the salon, looking in another man’s mirror.

The salon was busier than usual and the estrogen was everywhere, punctuated by a little testosterone here and there just to keep things interesting. The hormonal commotion, was coming from a bunch of scattered skinny girls, barely past the age of 16, who were all getting high on the fact that there was a man doting on them, running fingers through their hair, and telling them that he would do whatever they wanted to make them look fabulous.

I have to admit, even I like the pampering and the fact that for one hour, someone is dedicating their talents and time to make me look better than I was when I came in. However, I have never been reduced to a giggling teenage noodle by a man with scissors.

In the chair right next to me sat specimen A, from which an insane amount of giggling and flirting was spewing. I resist the urge to throw up into my coffee, while I look straight at the mirror trying not to make a face.

“No…no..give me that…” she squeals and reaches for her phone.

“Why, who’s picture is that? Hmm? Hmm?” the hair assistant says.

“Noooooobudddy…” she giggles coyly.

Can I kill them both? This is just the gay-looking hair-brushing boy and she’s all high pitched and out of control.

As I sip my coffee, with the pure intent of hiding the disapproving look on my face, my eyes peer at them from the corners, wondering how long this girl was locked in a cupboard before they sent her to get a haircut.

I was quite tempted several times, to turn around and suggest that the two of them get a room, especially since the hotel was just upstairs. But I didn’t. I kept my old-fashioned, dignified, opinions to myself.

Besides, it’s really challenging to be patronizing or judgmental when your hair is piled on top of your head, and you have an assortment of brash colored hair clips holding your hair into a fountain like arrangement. For some reason, whenever they do this to me at the hair dressers, I feel like suddenly everything on my face grows bigger and distorted like I’m looking into a fish bowl. My eyebrows start to look like two big black rainbows and my nose starts to take on the form of a root vegetable. That’s why I need my hair, to drown out the unbalanced features of my face, but for now, I must be patient and look like a post modern expressionist painting, before the unveiling of my hidden good looks.

At last my hair cut begins, and of course I have difficulty explaining what I want, because the truth is, I don’t really know what I want. Looking in the mirror for the past 20 minutes, I had shifted more towards wanting a nose job than just a meager hair cut, but I focus on the matter at hand and ask him to do something that suits me but keep it longish, as I like to pull it away from my face often.

Of course, he does nothing of what I ask, and as I see my hair being chopped up into all ungodly layers like a pine tree, I try really hard not to cry.

Meanwhile, freakshow on my right, is still making sexy eyes at the hair dresser and asking him if she can smoke. I swear she’s 12, but whatever, he lights her cigarette for her and they giggle and coo some more. What the hell do you have to smoke for in the MIDDLE of your bloody hair cut??? Are you telling me you are so addicted at this late stage in your life that if you don’t smoke now, you’re going to suffer a fit of shivers from nicotine withdrawal? Besides, she’s not even enjoying it, because he’s combed all her hair onto her face and half the time she can’t even find her mouth to inhale properly. Instead she just dangled and ashed the damn thing for 10 minutes, pretending to be Joan Collins or something. All she’s managed to do is infuse the smell into my wet freshly cut hair. Thank you, Cruella.

My hair was blow-dried to disguise all traces of the horrifying haircut I witnessed and looked magnificent. I beamed and thanked and tipped everyone who contributed to my makeover and went home pleased. Of course even if I had hated it, I would’ve done the same thing, and saved the crying for when I got to the car.

But as usual, we all know that at salons, the water is magical and the hair drying techniques are difficult to reenact at home. So the next day in the morning when I washed my hair and tried to restyle it into its former glory, I ended up looking like an over-the-hill Christmas tree, wondering if flirty flirtina’s haircut was better than mine.

Pony tail it is then, until my hairdresser comes back. Moral of the story? The hair on the other side of the bush always looks better than the mess on your head…or something like that.