Shut up and cut

For the first time ever, I sent something back in a restaurant. I was having brunch with my mom and ordered the "fresh-squeezed orange juice." Fancy fancy yuppie beverage, I know. When it came, there was no pulp and it was blazing neon orange-colored, and tasted nasty. Like crap-ass oj you buy from the corner store during times of real emergency. Anyway, I asked the waiter about it, and he was like, "Oh, we don't do fresh oj anymore; we just haven't changed the menus yet." Alrighty then.

I know it's totally reasonable to send something back when it's not what you ordered, but still I felt like such a bratty diva. I was very polite to the waiter the whole time, out of fear he would do something obscene to the food.

My mom and I got along fairly well all day, for us. We're like oil and water. (When I am poured into her bottle, I immediately bead up into little gelatinous baubles. Ha ha, not.) We just push each other's buttons like champs. I am trying to recognize our patterns and not let myself react badly when touchy subjects come up, but it's difficult to change 25 years of interactions. (More like 16, actually. I don't think I became such a hellacious brat until age 9 or so.)

So anyway, earlier today I got a haircut. I go to this haircutting school, which works fine for me. I have shoulder-length straight hair in little flippy layers, so it's not complicated and I have faith that the average hair student can replicate what the last one did.

(I love how some people are amazed when I tell them I go to a haircutting school, that I would "trust" my hair to anyone with less experience than, like, Vidal Sassoon. It's not like I'm going to a med student for my gall bladder surgery, for God's sake. Have some perspective. It's hair; it'll come back. And anyway, does anyone actually notice less-stellar-than-usual haircuts on other people?)

The guy who cut it today did a very good job, but he was pretty Chatty Cathy about it. One of the reasons I like the hair school is that all the stylists are about my age, so you can have fun conversations and stuff, but this guy just got on my nerves from the start. He was very hesitant about everything, and asked me if I was doing okay after every move he made. Like, was the bib-thing tied okay, was he massaging my head too hard, did I mind if he pumped my chair up higher, was it okay that he started the haircut taking the ends off and then did the layers? That last one really got me. Like, you're the hair student, dude! Do what you have to do! I don't care what order you do things in, or whether you hold my hair back with this clip or that one! Sheesh. Also, he was singing along to the radio. That part was actually pretty funny, especially when he was blow-drying my hair, because the dryer would be droning on and on and then suddenly he'd turn it off to adjust something, and he'd still be booming the song out for a second before he adjusted to the silence.

It was like "rrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrr...EEEEEerrrrrrr..." - click - "GONNA SOAK UP" - realization - "the suuunnnnnn..."

That was pretty entertaining.