Sunday, April 18, 2010

Bad Hair Day

I must have been the worst hair salon client ever. Okay, maybe not the "worst" in terms of mistreating the staff, but the "worst" in terms of being the client you really hope goes to someone else.

Women have a complicated relationship with our own hair. It's true. We're never really happy with it - if it's curly, we want it straight; if it's blonde, we want it red; if it's short, we want it long. It's always like that. Oh, we may like it well enough some days, but trust me, it's only a temporary truce. We get especially weird around big hair occasions. No, that doesn't mean an occasion that calls for big hair; although living here in the South, we do have a few of those. I mean events for which your hair really, REALLY matters.

Like a wedding.

So imagine, if you will, being the well-meaning hair stylist who has been at work, patiently minding her own business who suddenly is faced with me, a two-weeks-away-from-the-wedding bride who comes in hating her hair, wanting it changed totally (cut, color, and style) but doesn't have the faintest idea what she wants.

I wouldn't have blamed the stylist (oh, let me add that I'd never gone to her before - see what I mean about being the worst client ever?) if she had suddenly discovered that she was due for her break.

Bless her heart, she was a total professional in dealing with a near-madwoman. We talked and talked - what did I like? What did I NOT like? (A very important question that isn't asked as often as it should be.) When I said "red," did I mean "auburn" or "copper"? Highlights - did I want "honey" or "caramel" or maybe more of a "gold"? Oh, sure you don't think these are important questions, but trust me - there are certain situations in which these are VERY important questions. We're talking "defending the dissertation" important. And some things just shouldn't be rushed. Hair decisions two weeks before the wedding - that's in that particular category.

And it was worth it.

Meanwhile, back at the Nest, puffy, fluffy clouds of white dog hair continue to float through the breeze. I want to clean the house, but it just seems futile. In a Samuel Beckett sort of way, had he ever chosen to write about dog hair. (Hmmm - Sam Beckett's Hair of the Dog. It could have been wonderful!) With two white dogs taking up residence AND having to keep them separated for another three weeks (Haint's still undergoing heartworm treatment), it's as if the shedding fur has a life of its own. And it's a twisted, mocking life. I swear, I (okay, in all honesty, it's much more likely to be FryDaddy) can vacuum the floor and suck up half a Pomeranian worth of fur and thirty minutes later, there are furry tumbleweeds rolling across the all-too-briefly clean floor.

Sigh.

Hair. What can you do?

1 comment:

chadspurling said...

Great blog. It's a little late now and I'm sure my two cents on the matter don't really count for much but I really dug the way you had your hair when you had the book signing at CCC.