I am not a grumpy customer.
I am not a picky customer.
I am just not good at having a clue when it comes to getting my haircut.
"Do you want me to thin it out on top?"
"I don't want my hair to thin out." It is in fact thinning enough on its own.
"Do you want the bangs layered."
"I don't know; I just know I want the bangs."
"Do you want it cut straight over the ears?"
"YES" I knew the answer to that one.
"Do you want it tapered or straight?"
"Where?"
"In the back."
"What back?"
"The back of your neck."
"I don't want hair on the back of my neck."
Then I fell asleep. When I woke up she handed me a mirror, spun me around in a chair and showed me the back of my head. I only see the back of my head once every six weeks or so. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I always say "looks good, thank you." I guess one day I'll know it when I see it.
I really do not know what to ask for in a haircut, ever. I am so ignorant to the ways of hair wizardry.
I have a hard enough time brushing my own child's hair without snapping her head back and making her stare up permanently when I get the brush caught in those knots that I've doused with "anti tangle spray."
I was raised going to military barber shops. I would walk in, say "I would like a haircut" and then I would sit in a chair and get a haircut. Sometimes I got to sit on a little pony that the barber would put in the seat to boost me up. It wasn't a real pony... dammit.
Anyway, the militant lack of choice in haircuts that I was raised with really scarred my ability to pick out a haircut for myself.
In the 80's I was finally able to go to a place called a "salon" and I could show the girl a picture of what I wanted and she'd say "okay, let's do it" and she'd cut my hair into something that looked nothing like the picture. The only time they ever got it right was when I brought in a Dokken album and pointed to George Lynches head and said "that one!"
I got a mullet.
The worst hair cut EVER was in late '88 when I went to a campus salon, pointed to a picture and walked out with a poofy mushroom looking type haircut.
At that very moment I came to accept a few things:
- I am no good at asking for a haircut
- I have no concept of what looks good on my head
- It is the stylists hair that is on my head and I just wear it
- It will always grow back
- Aging may one day nullify that last point
- Apparently as a child my parents left me in a pasture and two cows licked my head and left two spots in my hair where my hair grows in a kind of hurricane type pattern
- It may have been one cow twice but regardless, I have two cow-licks on my head.
- Thanks to the cows, I can only part my hair ONE WAY
I started going to a barber again in the late 90's and early 00's (is "00's" right?) and it was easier for me. I was happy. It was awesome too, because while I sat in this barber shop full of macho military paraphernalia surrounded by men talking about manly things, this old guy would cut my hair and then throw a hot towel on the back of my neck and then massage my neck. Only rarely was there a lot of leather being worn and the Village People playing in the background. It was an all around manly time!
Salons are nice, but dainty. Also, there's that awkward thing when I'm getting a haircut where the stylist always tends to lean on me. With my height in the chair and them standing next to me, I feel weird when they lean in and get their balance by putting their lower abdomen region on my shoulder or on my arm. Really, it's unnerving.
It's hard to decide where to go... manly massage place... awkward lean place...
But no matter where I go, whenever I am asked "how do you want your hair cut" I understand completely how most women I've known feel when they take their car to the mechanic.
Ahhh who am I kidding. I feel the same way at the mechanic.
No comments:
Post a Comment