Hair-Brained Ideas

Desperate for a haircut, as in "I-needed-one-three-weeks-ago" kind of desperate, yesterday I reluctantly dragged myself into a hack-and-whack chain "salon" after being advised of a three-day wait at the neighboring independent shop.

I resignedly scrawled my name in the sign-in book and looked hesitantly around to scope out the scissor-wielders.  Nobody particularly freaky, I thought, and sat down somewhat reassured to glance through the hairstyle books.

Why I do this, I never know, because every time I do, I become, as my mother used to say, "shocked out of my everlovin' gourd" at the photos.  I turned about 20 pages and started looking around for the book with the title, Hairstyles for People Who Just Want to Look Normal.  And the sequel, Hairstyle "After" Photos that are Actually More Attractive than the "Before" Photos.  

No such luck.

You would think from looking at these books that people want to shell out their hard-earned cash to have a whirling dervish run rampant on their heads.  A lot of the styles could easily be accomplished at home by cutting one's own hair while blindfolded, then slathering it with gel, turning on the vacuum cleaner, and styling it with the crevice tool.    Seriously.  Maybe that's how they do it in the salon, which would account for the snarling expressions on the faces of most of the models--they have suction headaches.  Or maybe they're just possessed, and if we had video instead of still pics, we would see their heads spinning around furiously.  That would be thrilling, especially with the ones who sport broad strokes of  iridescent peacock blue eyeshadow under their eyes which, frankly, is better than the black.  I think.  Maybe not.

Anyway, I determined to just tell the snipper lady what I wanted.  I actually enjoyed the haircut.  She talked about her baby and how she had no idea until she held her newborn son that you could love anybody THAT MUCH.  So we had a little mom bonding moment there, and it was good.

I left feeling enormously relieved.  My bangs were no longer in my eyes, and I still looked like a normal person, despite my inner craziness.

This morning when I blow-dried my hair is when I noticed that the left side is about a half-inch shorter than the right.  But I'm not going back.  No way.