Part I : The fellowship of the hair

My hair thing has turned into a saga. What happened was sort of unexpected and ridiculous, and it has almost drained me of my will to live, let alone type, but I know there are a good four or five of you out there in computerland who are dying to know, so I will martyr myself and just get it all out there.

(Just to allay any terror any of you may be feeling right now, my hair does not look BAD. It is just not what I wanted.)

So the stylist girl was really nice to me when I first sat down. I explained what I wanted, which was punky and layered with the ends flipping out, and she was totally down with it. We were soldiers together in the battle of Operation: Make My Hair Look Less Like Crap.

Then she sent me to get shampooed. When I was done I waited for her in the chair, and after a few minutes she came in and she all reeked of cigarette. (Okay, sidebar: I am totally fine with smoking. I like smoking. Smoky bars and clubs are fine. But even when I was a smoker, I sure as hell didn't like my fingers or hair or clothes or bedsheets smelling of smoke. And I don't think I'm in the minority there.)

She started futzing around with my hair, and dear god, the clouds of cigarette were hovering all around, and her hands were all stanky, and HER STANKY HANDS WERE ALL IN MY HAIR! And it had just been washed! What is the point of that? I could have asked the shampoo guy to skip the soap and just lather me up with ash from the nearest ashtray, if I wanted to reek of cig. So I said to her, very politely, "I'm so sorry, but I'm allergic to the smoke. Do you mind just washing your hands real quick?" (The allergy thing was a lie, but it is hard for me to be assertive, so cut me some slack.) She looked surprised but she agreed nicely, and she went, and then she came back.

And THEN she proceeded to cut my hair in the most passive-aggressive fashion ever. Until that moment I had not been aware that it was even possible to imbue haircutting with passive-aggression, but take it from me: it is. She did not look at me or say one word the entire time. She did not clip my hair into different sections, or even part my hair, or even COMB my hair. It was just in a big tousled zig-zag pile on my head, and she spent about five minutes grabbing chunks of it and cutting. Suddenly she said, "Is that good?"

I looked up. I had to look through a wall of hair, because she had shoved the entire front half of my hair so that it hung directly over my eyes. Through the wall, I saw that my hair was still dripping wet, hanging in little tendrils. It did appear to be shorter, at least in certain areas. Assuming she was asking me whether the length was okay, and for her to proceed with getting it all even, I said "Um. Yeah, okay."

But no, she then broke out the blowdrier. At this point, I admit, she did brush my hair out, so I didn't leave with a rat's nest or anything. After a few minutes she finished, thrust the mirror into my hands, spun me around, and marched off towards the front desk. I had about five seconds to check myself out. It was not disastrous, but she had turned the ends under, so I looked like a TV news anchorwoman, or Monica Lewinsky. I looked really really conservative, and poufy, and lame. Also, I couldn't be too sure, but it looked uneven. (Possibly that was because she had never parted my hair and compared the length of each side to the other? Just a thought.)

But I didn't really have time to, you know, TALK TO HER, because she marched back and with the bill and snatched my bib-thing off. I thought, Okay, I guess I'm done then!

On my walk home I called a friend and wailed about how poufy and Monica-y I looked. I felt embarrassed just to be out in public with my stupid helmet hair, and I think I saw a few Trendy People pointing at me and snickering. I was so upset that my face turned all red, so I was blotchy and poufy. Not a good look.

Anyway, in my ongoing struggle to become an Assertive Adult, I called the manager of the salon just now and explained the whole thing. She was fantastically, everlovingly nice. I am actually going in tomorrow to get it fixed for free, and I have a reservation with "Alex," who apparently I will "love," because "he is sooo cute." (According to the supernice manager.)

With any luck this will all be over tomorrow and I can move on to worrying about more normal things, like laundry and credit card bills and nuclear war.