What was I thinking?

What was she thinking?
Quick, buy me a hat!
I should look on the bright side.
In ten years it will grow back.

There are always tough decisions in your life. Do you get a scone or a croissant? Do you get a cat or a dog? Do you wear underwear today or not? Do you pick the M & M off the floor and eat it or kick it underneath the couch? Do you listen to Bruce Hornsby today or Marc Cohn? Do you dye your hair, or do you stick with unfashionably early gray to look decades older than your partner? I picked dye. Sometimes I wonder why.

When I moved, I knew I was going to have to give up some comforts. No, I’m not living in a corrugated community now, or a yurt. But I had to give up the comfort of a doctor, dentist and hairdresser that I knew, and begin the painful process of finding new ones that I like. I once made the mistake of picking a dentist out of the phone book. After what I call “the staple gun incident”, my lesson was learned: no more unreviewed professionals. I want testimonies, portfolios of happy customers, and letters of reference, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I REALLY needed a haircut and “color touch-up”, as I was beginning to look like a hippie Pepe Le Pew, so I violated my personal rules and made an appointment with a name on a coupon that I got in the mail. What was I thinking?

A few days later I drove to my appointment. The outside of the building was nice enough, and it was in a good part of town, so I was feeling pretty confident. When I walked into the door, I started to get the same feeling in the pit of my stomach that you get about the time the scary music begins to crescendo, and you find yourself yelling “No! Don’t open the door!” The surroundings immediately alerted me that they were “in transition”. Wires were hanging from the ceiling and there were patches of drywall painted with various swatches of what I would label “Panera colors”, and waves of plastic sheeting covered unused hair dryer machines. At least I hoped there weren’t people under the plastic. A perky “hostess”, no doubt clueless about what people listened to before CD’s and ipods, greeted me with “Hi, we’re remodeling, can I get you something to drink and take your coat and have a seat, she’ll be right with you, grab a magazine if you’d like, oh don’t sit there, the paint’s not dry yet, thanks for coming in today.” Apparently the new models of humanoids don’t have to breath when they speak.

I waited as calmly as someone can be, knowing that in a few minutes my head would be bathed in some fowl-smelling ammonia bath. My wait was short. In just a few short minutes a pre-teen walked out from behind the plastic curtain and called my name. I walked behind her with a myriad of thoughts racing through my mind. Omigod she’s twelve! I have cheese older than she is! Can she even drive here, and where does she park her tricycle? Since when is cosmetology an elective in Junior High? I took ping-pong! Do I have time to run to the car, or will I be thwarted with a skillful toss of a blow dryer thunking the back of my head? I sat, frightened into submission. “What are we doing today,” she said as she pawed at my hair.

Who is “we” Kemosobee? You should be in school. I should be with someone old enough to read the instructions on the back of the shampoo bottle! “Oh, I just need a trim and a touch-up of color.”

“Do you have a picture of what you want the style to look like?”

Look at me! That’s your picture, only shorter! Are you an idiot? “I just need a trim.”

“But what STYLE do you want?” Again, she’s tousling my hair and turning her head while looking at my hair as if she were a dog and I was asking her a question about Cartesian geometry.

“The same style I have now, only shorter.” This is NOT effing rocket science. Do they not teaching hair cutting anymore, is it only styling and head-tilting?

“Well, after we do the color, why don’t you sit and look at pictures in the hairstyle magazines.” Her bovine-like expression mirrored her understanding. I don’t want to look through magazines of skinny teens with short hair. I use this quality time to peruse Star and US, and other trashy media choices,so that I can keep up with Brad and Angelina, Jennifer and Vince, and the fashion police. I will not have you taking that away from me!

She continues to poke at my head with a variety of instruments and hair swatches and determined that I would be a “brunette, #117” with color highlights. “What do you think about this color?” she asked, still using gestures from the German Shepherd Body Language Book.

Are you blind? Does it match my hair now?Do you think I’m planning on dropping my current job and taking up something like prosititution or pole dancing?Do I look like someone who would value say, MAGENTA hair? I don’t think so. “I was thinking of keeping the same color I have now.”

“Oh. That’s too bad. If you ever decide to change, this would be a good one.”

Thank you Einstein. Should I make a career move to topless dancing, you’ll be the first one I call.

She wisked away the swatches and came back with an “applicator”, which was a combination paint brush/death stick, and a vat of toxic hair goo appromimately the consistancy and smell of rotting flesh. She proceeded to dab the goo around my head, periodically lifting the hair with the death stick and impaling my scalp. After applying a quart of the viscous liquid to my scalp, she sent me off to the magazines. I glanced at my reflection in the mirror as I walked, and muffled a scream. I could clearly see that a two inch band of flesh around my hair was also going to be Brunette #117. I rushed to get it off without disturbing the hair, and settled down with “Hip Hairstyle Magazine” to find a picture of my hair. I thought about showing her my drivers license picture, but I look vaguely like a frightened serial killer. It really doesn’t do my hair-cut justice.

After perusing the “sassy short styles” chapter in the periodical, I marked it and started on a pile of popular culture reference material: ie., star rags. I was well into my third magazine when another woman came to sit beside me. She was sprouting the foil-wrapped mane of highlighting. I asked what time it was and shrieked when I heard the answer. I had been sitting for over an hour with 40-minute permanent color leeching into my head. Ohmigod. Does it cause brain damage? Will it begin to eat through my flesh after 65 minutes? This isn’t going to turn my hair green, is it? Didn’t I see that on the Brady Brunch once?Was it Jan or Marsha? I wonder if Alice is still alive? I heard that Greg wanted to date Mrs. Brady…SNAP OUT OF IT! You are going to have serious hair damage if you don’t focus! I jumped back to reality and tried to flag down the nearest stylist. After some explanation of my concern, the stylist replied “Oh, she’s with another customer, she’ll be right with you.” WHAT? I’m going to have to start wearing hats to cover up the burn-damaged hair. Perhaps a fashionable turban? After picking out a myriad of trendy hats in my mind, my wayward styling agent finally came to get me…after an hour and 20 minutes, or approximately TWICE the length of time the rotting flesh concoction is supposed to stay on my head. My hope of an event-free hair styling experience was nearly gone.

She lead me over to the sink, and I sat down and leaned back, anxious to have the toxins removed from my scalp. She turned on the water and promptly sprayed me with scalding water. “HOT!” was the only thing I was able to say, as the toxins had apparently rendered me monosyllabic. She turned the temperature down and dowsed my head, taking great care to aim the sprayer at precisely the right angle to fill my ears with hot water. I fliched, and tried to get out of the chair. I, unlike the actors in the shower commericals, do not like to have water poured directly on my face. I blame the catholic church for this aversion as I have photographic evidence that I was a happy baby until the priest poured a pitcher of water over my head. I’ve hated it ever since. She appologized and in an effort to avoid my ears, moved the sprayer in the general direction of the 2 inch band of flesh, still brunette #117. Unfortunately, the band was very near my eyes. As she sprayed, the dark water ran straight from hair into my eyes. I screamed as the toxins began to eat away at my contacts. “BURNING!” (Again, unable to form complete sentences.) The combination bovine/shepherd’s reply to my pain was a disinterested “Oh, did I get color in your eye?”

There is toxic black liquid burning out my corneas and all you can say is “did I get color in your eye”! I hate you with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns! Let me stick the business end of that paintbrush/death stick into your eye, and you will begin to know the pain that I’m feeling! “TOWEL!” I screamed. She grabbed the towel from around my neck and gave it to me. I patted my eyes, and the burning began to ebb. “Gahwah” was what came out of my mouth, but instead of Arab coffee, I was referring to the pain in my eyes. I continued to dab, and she stood motionless, inexplicably stoic and unmoved by my predicament. She waited until the sobbing stopped and leaned me back and continued with the spraying, only marginally more careful about orifice-spraying than before. She had, however, forgotten that she removed my protective towel from around my neck. I began to feel a dampness spread down my back, and I had the unpleasant sensation that something bad was happening – again. I reached back, trying to ascertain if the liquid was water, or if she had pierced me with something sharp in an effort to get me not to think about the burning sensation in my eyes. Unfortunately, the positioning of the shampoo chairs renders you useless, not unlike a turtle being upended. The suspense didn’t last, though. She sat me up and uttered the word that should not be heard in a surgery center, dentist office or hair styling salon: “oops”. OOPS! What could possibly be wrong now? Did you wash all of my hair off? Did you accidently use “Bozo Red” as a coloring agent?

“I think I got you wet.” Really? I hadn’t noticed? A toddler having a seizure would have had better sprayer control than you! Did you actually GRADUATE from beauty school?

She applied more towels and we walked back to her “station”. I pointed to the picture in the magazine that I held in a death-grip during the rinse cycle. “Like this, only NOT AS SHORT.” She nodded and began the process of drying off my hair with all the gentleness of a Steeler’s linebacker. She got out her “styling clippers” and began to clip. One hair at time. She combed, she used longish hairclips to hold my hair in different arrangements on my head, and ever-so-slowly clipped. My god, woman, do you need caffeine?At this glacial rate the next season of the L-word will be back on before you finish. How could you possibly be a combination Dog, Cow, Turtle so succcesfully? After an eternity she finished the methodical clipping, arranging, styling process, and began to dry.

“What styling products do you use?”

“I don’t.”

Silence. Staring. Bovine-like chewing.

“I mean like styling paste, mousse, gel, you know.”

“Yes, I know what styling products are, I just don’t use them.” I didn’t offer to her that I had not actually ever SEEN styling paste, but I knew it existed.”

Silence. Staring.

“What do you do with your hair?”

“I comb it.”

Silence. Staring. Shepherd head tilting.

“Wow.” Apparently she thought I was the hair styling equivelent of the Australopithecus.

She styled, she dried, she styled. She added paste. She styled, she dried. She added “sheen”, she dried, she styled. A Jean Auel novel could have been written and re-read by Evelyn Wood drop-outs in the time it took my hair to be styled. She finished with a “ta-da” and turned me around to see in the mirror. I looked like a charred chia pet. Ohmigod. Did I not mention that I didn’t want my hair THAT short. Does the word “trim” not appear in your vocabulary?And what are those stains on my face?

“Face.” Again, I had stunned into one syllable responses.

She got out “Color remover” and a towel and tried to remove the stain by removing the skin itself.

“It’s okay, I’ll shower when I get home.” I was fighting the urge to run. I got up and she removed the attractive shower-curtain cape I was wearing.

“Oh.my.god”. It’s never good when the stylist says thatwith staccato inflection. I looked down at the “used to be pink” shirt I was wearing. Remember in Carrie when the blood starts falling from the ceiling? Picture that, only in sepia tones. When she had removed the protective towel from around my neck, it had allowed all the color run-off to follow my contours down to my shirt. It appeared that a bucket of chocolate fudge had fallen on my upper body.

“Wash it in bleach. I’m sure it will come out. If it doesn’t, come back and we’ll reimburse you.”

You know what? I don’t think so. I’m not sure vanity is worth all this. What was I thinking? I’m going to take my fudge-stained body, charred chia pet hair and scalded scalp home and sulk. And maybe next time I think about getting my hair dyed, I’ll make a stop at the wig store.




*Christine Lavin from the Four Bitchin’ Babes Fax It! Charge It! Don't Ask Me What's For Dinner