Don't think of it as hair product. Think of it as spackle.

Good evening all!

So I was going to get a head start on my Laundry List for tomorrow, but that is going to have to wait.  (Oh, a late Laundry List?  You don't say!)  I've just come from doing something that I've decided is more awful, more tedious, and more ridiculously stupid than getting a mammogram.

I got my hair cut and my eyebrows waxed.

It was time.  I haven't had my hair cut in probably 8 months...and I'm betting it's been that long for the eyebrows.  (I pretty much just get the waxing done when I can no longer see THROUGH the eyebrows...and yes, I said eyebrows.  You heard me.)

So, since going to see Skippy's friend Mystique at her hair academy wasn't in the cards  (because I had to do this after work)  I went to my local don't make an appointment hair place.

I never get the same person twice.  In fact, I never get to ask for the same person twice because every time I work up a good relationship with the cutter  (last time, if you recall, it was Roberta)  they leave.

This time I got Karen.  That's her real name...according to the waxy crayon on the mirror...and I'm using it to warn those of you who may want to use her.

Let's start with the wax.  A typical eyebrow wax takes four minutes.  Not for Karen.  No, the Right eyebrow took four minutes...

The Left took 9.

She did so much work on the left, I'm afraid to look.  And they always hold up the mirror and say, "How does that look?"  When you DON'T have your glasses on.  9 minutes.  I could have plucked every strand of hair from the eyebrow at that time.  WHAT WAS SHE DOING UP THERE?

No matter.  After the longest wax in history I was ready for a cut.  I showed her the two pictures I always have to show every cutter when I go in there.  I should just tear out the pages.

"Wait a minute," she says to me, "Let me put on my glasses."

Wait....you just applied hot wax and tweezers to my FACE and you need glasses....and you weren't wearing them?

I show her the pictures, I explain in great detail what I want.  "SHORT" says I.  "SHORT AND LAYERED."

Every ten minutes, after removing a minuscule amount of hair, she says, "Is it short enough?"

"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Meanwhile, she's grousing to the girl next to her  (the one who has completely cut four heads in the time I've been sitting there) about how BOOKED she is.  It's not that she's booked.  SHE'S SO DARN SLOW.

I guess cutting by Braille takes a little longer.

So, after telling her for a third time that it is not what I wanted, she puts her glasses back ON, looks at the pictures again, and says, "Oh, right...you want it short."

More razoring, more cutting.  She holds up a mirror.  "What do you think?"

We both squint at the mirror because neither one of us can seen without our glasses.

"NO... I DON'T WANT SIDEBURNS..."  I say.  "CUT THEM OFF."

Yes, right here...women should not wear side
burns as lush as mine.

"Cur them off?"  She is truly stunned that I don't love the weed whack job she's done because the sideburns...if I were a man and lived in the 70's, are impressive.  (As a fan of Emergency...I loved Dr Brackett...I just don't want to look like him.) 


SO the sideburns were gone.   And still she kept cutting and razoring...but only on one side.  Oddly enough....on the LEFT, you know, the eyebrow that held all her focus...now that side of my head was sooooooo time consuming!

The upside was that I got to listen to her complain about a customer who just booked an appointment with her...

"I hate doing flat top hair cuts,"  says she.  "I usually tell him I'm booked so I don't have to take him.  I hate doing flat tops...they take so long."

(I've never had a flat top...but I also haven't had a haircut take longer than 12 minutes in the past ten years.  I just don't have a lot of demands and I don't have a lot of hair.)

After being in her chair for 30 minutes...just for the cut...She was done.  Sort of.  She held up the mirror and again we both squinted. 

"I really don't like the left side,"  Says I.  But at this point, even without our glasses, it was clear that there wasn't enough hair to do anything about it.

"I'll put some hair putty on it."

I let her work in some sort of sticky substance, which I think she believed would make the hair on that side of my head longer.  (Of course, she could have just taken some hair from the back...a place that saw little of her scissors in spite of my directions...and the pictures I showed her.)  It wasn't so much hair product to enhance the hair...it was Spackle to fill in the gaps and holes.

As I left, Peaches, who was with me, said, "Cute hair, mom."  (She always means well.)

I haven't really looked at it yet.  But I know, I'll wash the putty out, blow dry it, and possibly trim the bangs which, for reasons I have yet to understand, she cut in a V shape with the longest part of the bang right in front of my eyes.  Very Sci Fi channel.

The good news is that haircuts for me, much like mammograms, are few and far between.  By the time I go back, she won't be there anymore.

Or she'll still be doing that one guy's flat top.