Why haircuts stress us out

Tell me if this happens to you, too.  (Sorry, guys.  I don't know if you can relate to this. )



Fifty years of great haircuts!

 The woman who cuts my hair does a fine job (no pun intended).  She, too, has crappy hair, so she knows the territory well--Shannon's not going to do something crazy that would look good only on a model for a Pantene commercial.  She never cuts it too short, either, which I appreciate big-time.  A few years ago my regular guy in Albany went though a scissor-happy period where every visit resulted in a good three weeks of waiting for my hair to grow out.  There's nothing worse than a haircut that's way shorter than you expected, don't you think? 

You know how it goes.  You're sitting there, maybe chatting away, and then, "Wait a second..."  You start to get nervous even though it's hard to tell exactly what's going on because your head is wet and messed up.  But with every snip, you're more aware of the accumulating hair on the floor than whatever the hell you were talking about.  You really want to slap the scissors out of his hand and yell, "Enough with the cutting already!" but instead you sit there obediently and smile thinly at the points in the conversation where he thinks he's being witty.

You think okay, maybe it's not as bad as you imagine and pray for the moment when the scissors are retired and it's time for the styling phase.  But inevitably, usually while the blow dryer is blasting away, you arrive at that moment of realization where your suspicions are confirmed.  Yep, it's too short.  Way too short.  You sit there seething and when he offers the hand mirror and swirls your chair around so you can see how he scalped the back of your head, you manage to eke out something like, "Yeah, it looks... good," because at this point what the hell can be done? 

Don't you hate it when that happens?

There's another salon scenario that's not nearly as bad, but still drives me nuts.  It seems that almost every haircut is about 10 minutes too long; that's when the hairdresser starts getting fancy with the "product" and styling.   He's got the curling iron going (as if!) and awards each hair with its own individual spritz.  You have no friggin' idea what your head is going to look like in real life, which will begin as soon you get out of the shower you're going to take the second you get home, but it's goofy as hell right now (reminds you of those plastic wigs you used to have as a kid) and you pray there's a baseball cap in the car because you have a couple of errands to do and you sure as hell don't want to be seen in public like this.

"Enough with the friggin' hairspray!" you want to say, but you sit there smiling like an idiot and when he offers the hand mirror and swirls your chair around so you can see the masterpiece he created with the back of your head, you manage to eke out something like, "Yeah, it looks... good," because at this point what the hell can be done?

Right?

What we go through just to look beautiful.