Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Shave and a Haircut?

I left zoo court yesterday afternoon a little after 4:00 and decided to take my lunch hour instead of heading back to the office. I had an appointment at a salon in the mall scheduled for 5:00, so I headed over early to shop for a few minutes. After buying some work related clothes and a couple of books, I went into the salon.

I didn't have to wait very long for the stylist to be ready for me, which was a good surprise since she had been slow the other time I saw her. She asked if I liked my haircut from before, and I made pleased noises in response. She planned out the session saying she'd shampoo and condition my hair, wax my eyebrows, and then put me under the dryer for the deep conditioning to work. She stopped the sentence there, but I didn't think anything of it at the time. We headed back to the sinks and started the process of making me beautiful-ish. She worked on my eyebrows for what felt like a century and seemed surprised that my skin turned red. (Lady, I'm fair-skinned and you are torturing me with tweezers and hot wax...what did you think would happen?) After making my skin brighter than the Red Raider's hair--so red that it was difficult to actually see my eyebrows--she handed me a mirror and asked what I thought. Again with the pleased noises.

She wrapped a string of cotton around my head almost like I was getting a perm and sealed my hair under a shower cap. Then she led me to the row of old-fashioned hair dryers and told me to sit. Despite the novel I held in my hands, she tried to foist some outdated fashion magazine on me that I practically had to bat away with the aforementioned novel. As she adjusted the dryer over my head, she dropped the bowl thing too quickly so it bashed my head. Oops. She quickly righted it and set me to cook for another 10 minutes.

Finally I was done. But it took a few more minutes for her to free me from the dryer and take me back to her station. On the way she asked if I wanted her to style my hair or leave with it still damp. As it was approximately 15 degrees outside and I had planned on getting dinner after she finished, I opted for the style. I didn't fancy having icicle hair. (Why does styling hair cost extra? Seriously, they are using hot air and hot metal to make my hair go in strange directions. Usually, they use so much product "styling" my hair that it appears that I am at least two inches taller than when I came in. Why do I have to pay extra for poofy?)

At this point, I fully expected her to break out the scissors and start trimming my hair. Granted, it didn't need much, but with fairly short hair, stylists generally prefer to trim it often so it keeps its shape. The bangs at least could have used a little attention. After all, my hair grows incredibly fast. But instead of grabbing scissors, she picked up her hairdryer and started attacking my hair. Within 5 minutes she had it dry and styled (no product at least). I mostly sat there speechless wondering what had happened. How did I go in for a haircut and end up with deep conditioned hair (that I never asked for by the way, but whatever) that looked exactly the same as when I walked in? What cue in the conversation slipped past me without me catching on that I was supposed to say "Aren't you going to CUT my hair?" Whatever it was, at this point I mostly wanted out. So I kept my mouth shut even as my mind kept up a litany of "WTFs."

After she finished styling it she said "It's getting a little long in the back, are you planning on growing it out?"

...

So yeah...I'd rather have a goblin give me a shave and a haircut next time.

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