It’s long and straight and normal color...so many people have said nice things about it over the years, girls are envious of the length...the hell is this woman smoking?

Long story short, (and after MUCH teeth pulling and agony because there are times I would rather shove a dagger through my chest than allow anyone to help me), she convinced me to go with her to her regular salon to get it cut and highlighted.

Sigh.  This was NOT an easy thing for me to agree to do.  I have cut and colored my own hair most of my adult life and everything has been perfectly fine until recently.  Suddenly everyone had an opinion about my hair and the way some people talked, you would think it looked like a rat’s nest after a category 5 hurricane.  Give me a break.  But I finally relented and that day was today.

I drove all the way up to Ft. Lauderdale, cursing under my breath and making comments to no one in my car, “Whatever.  My hair is perfectly fine.  Why can’t these people just leave me alone?  Why does everyone always want to change me?  God!  Just leave me alone!!  Damn I wish I was rich so I would not have to work and be bothered by people.”

I get there and the boss is waiting outside for me.  We walk in and she introduces me to her um....stylist, I guess they are called, and mine.  Now, this place is swanky.  They had fountains and low lighting along a wall, the bathroom had one of those bowl sinks with washcloths to dry your hands, they had really nice decorations all over the place....my first thought was, “I bet this isn’t going to be a $20 haircut.” We then walk to a closet and don our long black robes to protect our clothing.  I’m already feeling like a douchebag.  After about 5 minutes we are each taken to our respective chairs, around the wall from each other, (Thank God!), and my stylist lady asks me what I’m looking for.

“I’m looking for everyone to leave me the fuck alone”, I think to myself.  Instead I tell her that maybe she can cut off 2 inches and maybe she can do some sort of highlights since the boss insisted and is paying for the whole thing.  She proceeds to discuss what would look good with my face shape, eye color and natural hair color.

“Fine”, I tell her, “just don’t cut above this length no matter what my boss says.”

She goes to the back room and starts mixing color.  An assistant comes over to ask me if I’d like anything to drink, “ice tea, green tea, lemonade, cranberry...” Woah!  Wha?  I’ve NEVER been offered a beverage at a salon!  Um...is that extra?  Wait, I’m not paying for this, who cares!  Bring on the iced tea!  She brings it to me and I am left to sit there, bored, in the chair, picking at the black robe I’m wearing and sipping my iced tea.  Finally the stylist comes back out with three different bottles of colors.  Oy vey....I think this might really suck.

She begins seperating and coloring my hair and then wrapping each....grouping, (whatever!), in tin foil.  Oh yes, my favorite part.  As if we don’t look ridiculous enough with all those clips in our hair, let’s wrap it like left over dinners in Reynold’s Wrap and throw me in the fridge for a week.

Color, color, seperate, color, seperate, yank (OW!), color, color, etc.

Eventually I look like an extremist leftist with my tin foil hat.  And, NATURALLY, in walks the hot looking not gay stylist to begin his work day.  Of course.  OF COURSE!  God hates me.

I am brought to another chair to sit for 20 minutes looking as stupid as possible with my tin foil and black robe and really, really, really hating people right now who would not just shut the hell up and let me be me.  After 20 minutes have gone by, I am taken over to the sinks to be rinsed.  The rinse guy takes all the foil off my head, and honestly, as soon as that embarassing crap was off my head, I started to relax a little.  He then began rinsing and massaging my head.

Oh baby.

I think it should be a rule, a law that someone is to come to my house each and every night and wash my hair and massage it.  Good Lord that felt wonderful.  A small, dark blue towel was placed on my head while I was directed to sit in yet another chair in the waiting area until my stylist was done cutting some dude’s hair.  I looked like a milk maid on a farm.

Within 10 minutes I’m back in the original chair and the stylist starts cutting.  Snip, snip, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut....er, isn’t that kind of a lot of cutting?  Because my hair is so long, I actually had to stand behind the chair rather than sit in it so the stylist could cut it.  She did most of the cutting and then had me sit down to blow it dry and style it.

She turned the chair away from the mirror so that I could not see the end result and when she did this, I caught a glimpse of my precious hair on the floor.  The rinse guy saw me looking at it in horror and immediately got a broom to sweep it away.  Finally the drying and styling was done and stylist lady swung me back around to the mirror.

And HOT DAMN!  I looked smoking hot!  She then finished up with the bangs and then?  I was done.  And ya know....I turned a lot of heads in there.  Even gay guy heads.  I walked around the wall to the boss and she was delighted.  I have to admit, it does look pretty good.  It’s shorter than before and a little shorter than I wanted but it’s still long, (seriously, my hair was to my waist), and the three colors she mixed in look fabulous.

So, here I was, feeling all good about things when stylist lady says, “Now you just need to get your eyebrows done.”

SIGH!  Now there’s more that people want to change?  Am I not acceptable just the way I am?  Am I that hideous?  Cripes!  I have only one time had them done and that was when I was doing a photo shoot for an agency in Seattle.  And that shit hurts!  So I never did it again.  They aren’t bad and I was blessed with some nice shaped ones but no, they aren’t perfect like you see on models because I don’t get paid $500,000 an hour to have someone groom me and shoot photos of me.  If I was, I would take the pain.  But I’m not..so what’s the point?

“So you can feel good about yourself!!!”

I feel perfectly fine just the way I am, thank you very much.

Up the stairs and on to the table, the eyebrow lady begins discussing what she’ll be doing.  (Yes! I lost the battle.  SIGH, again.) She put the wax on....just a bit on the warm side don’t ya think, put some sort of strip over the wax and RIIIP!

OWWWW!

Then she did the other side.

Then she said she needed to tweeze a little because you can’t do it perfectly with just the wax.  Yank, pluck, yank, yank, pluck, yank, yank, yank....OW OW OW OW OW!  I hate you all!

She got done and handed me a mirror and asked me what I thought.  Um....I wasn’t sure what to make of it.  I didn’t look bad but to me it was WEIRD!  My eyes looked bigger all of a sudden and it was weird to see my eyebrows that way.  It’s not like it was a HUGE difference but it was different.  And it was a little red still so hard to make a determination at that point.

Eventually we were all done and the boss got the bill.  Now, let me tell you all something before you go spouting off about how I should do this more often and treat myself and think how great I’ll feel and I deserve this and “YOU SEE” and any other crap you want to pull out of your “I was right” arsenal.

Does my hair look good?  No, it looks fucking fabulous.  Was it nice?  Der, yes.  Am I glad I did it?  Yes.  Will I do it again?  Not at this place.  Why?  It’s not that they didn’t do a good job, it’s not that they weren’t all awesome and great.....you see, my hair better look this damned fantastic because the bill for my part only was…

$380!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even if I could afford it, I just can’t bring myself to spend that kind of money on a haircut and color.  That’s crazy.  So....next time you all want to start harping on some thing about me, my hair, my clothes, my car....whatever....you remember that price tag.  And you start opening those wallets.  Because, as you see, if someone else pays for it, I’ll do it.

Otherwise I’m leaving it alone for another 6 years or I’m going to Supercuts.  Capisce?  So, fork over the dough or shut up about it!

Now then, I’m going to go admire myself in the mirror again because I really do look fucking phenomenal.