Why can't I get a decent haircut?, Pt. II

I looked at the back of my head one last time before I went to sleep last night and wondered if it was possible that the woman who took the clipper to the back of my head did her damage on purpose. I tend to trust everyone is doing the best they can, which includes thinking that no one is being malicious. Obviously, I haven't watched enough reality-TV shows in my life. But, when I look at the mess on the back of my head and realize it started by a flick of the wrist on the part of the beauty salon's manager, I just have to wonder. The woman is so conservative in her appearance (see #9 above for similar style, only much larger all over, and without any irony), and perhaps I overlooked the idea that someone was trying to make my holiday season less jolly on purpose. For all I know, she assumes all women with very short hair are lesbians and she's out to make 'em miserable. I forget how hateful people can be. So, I'm glad I gave the other woman a tip, even though that place didn't deserve a penny, for she needed to be a genius to figure out a way to correct things. She was as bewildered as I was as to why this woman took a clippers and shaved straight across the back of my head (and not perfectly straight at that) about an inch above the base of my earlobes.

So, I was only coming on here to respond to a comment left at the last post, which reminded me of many bad haircuts I've had before. Oh dear. I'm suddenly singing "To all the bad haircuts I've had before" with a Julio Iglesias voice (in my head, of course). I'm always amazed at the songs I've got stored in this brain of mine.

And there are many memories of tips that shouldn't have been given, times I shouldn't have paid, haircuts that were so terrible I went home and shaved my entire head (something I wouldn't mind doing right now, but the front looks quite nice, so I won't), very few memories of anything nice surrounding hair-cutting (and if I think of anything, I'll post it, I promise).

One time I went to get my hair cut when I was feeling quite down. Some people call this a bad hair day, but let's be honest, it's usually an I feel bad about myself day. This was nearly twenty years ago, but I remember it well. I didn't feel like looking in the mirror for twenty minutes, so I asked not to, and trusted that this been-there-forever-everyone-loves-it salon would do a good job of just giving me a nice "pixie" haircut. When the woman spun me around to look in the mirror, it looked like she had cut my hair with a blindfold tied around her eyes. I honestly can't remember what it looked like now. The shock must have given me some aesthetic amnesia (this is pure hyperbole, of course). Anyway, I went over to the library to pick up some books and bumped into two people who asked "What happened to your hair?" It was that bad. I pulled a hat over my head, went home, and promptly called the salon. I wanted to complain to the manager.

This time, I swore, I wouldn't take it in silence. I would complain heartily! With phone in hand, I demanded to speak to the manager or owner, but she wasn't in. "She'll call you back", said the unknown person, who added, "Could you tell me who cut your hair this morning?" Ah. I had forgotten her name. "Who was working here?" I asked. There was a pause on the line. "Oh. Only the store's owner was here this morning", said the girl (which is what they all call themselves in beauty salons, either that or "gal", and "the ladies" (which I've only heard used amongst the dreaded women of a certain age or those who are on the flaming side).

I could hear myself gulp. Now, I had planned out exactly what I would say when I called. I'd demand a haircut from the store owner, who simply had to be competent. Now I was confronted with not only the fallacy of my logic, but the fact that if I did complain, I'd be confronting someone with their ineptitude and my opinion about it. Y'know what I did? Nothing. Well, no, I shaved my head and it felt good. I do love running my palms over a nice even pate of freshly buzz-cut stubble.

Maybe this is why sometimes depressed women shave their heads. They feel like getting just getting a nice haircut to perk themselves up. Getting a nice haircut seems to be a lot less simple than it should be.

Did I even mention that before the bad haircut that was supposed to be a correction to the previous bad haircut, I had had my ear slipped lightly with a scissors, had water forced into my ear at full force, my clothes drenched to the point where they needed to be put in the salon's dryer for over an hour, was left in semi-wet pants and my undershirt under that awful drape, was lied to about what a demi-color would do to my hair, and had my hair dyed a fairly bright raspberry and had to have them correct it? I am not making this up. The woman who did all this had her leg wrapped in bandages; I assumed she probably had taken too many painkillers or something, due to her listlessness (and outrageous incompetence - "Oops, are you bleeding?!". So, that's my excuse for going back to the same place for help a few days later. Well, that and not wanting to spend any more money. . .

Lordy lordy lord (as some people might say). All this about haircuts? Yep.