Last Thursday, after changing hotels, I decided I needed to get my hair cut. Like, immediately. The frizzles and frazzles that I call my hair were getting to me. It didn't matter that I was out of town with no idea where or to whom to go - I needed a haircut, and I needed it NOW!!I needed to make a grocery run, so I decided to go to the nearest salon to the grocery store. I thought I had no preferences - just somebody with a pair of scissors. I was mistaken.
The first place had a sign that said "Salon." It appeared that the person in charge probably used a magic marker to make the sign. I also could not see inside the windows. Since more money was probably spent on the marker than high-quality supplies, like a sharp pair of scissors, I decided to pass.
I pulled into the grocery store parking lot and saw another hair-cutting place a few doors down. It seemed like a legit place - the door was wide open, so I went to investigate. There was a woman semi-sprawled out on a sofa, and a man and his teen-aged son sitting on a couple of chairs by the wall. Somewhere in the back it appeared that a woman was washing something - I'm still not sure if it was a person or something else. I wasn't sure if I was in a salon or a rehab center, so I decided to pass on this one, too.
I finished my grocery run and looked up hair cutters on the Internet. I was looking for anything that sounded legit - Fantastic Sams (or Joe or Harry), Great Cuts, Scissors A-Plenty - anything that gave me some degree of security. I found a few that I thought I could find and set off on my quest.
Eventually I found one - might have been a Great Cuts. I walked in to find no customers - a sign that we take as "turn around and leave" when it is applied to a restaurant - but went in anyhow. Esmeralda (or something like that) met me at the desk, and we got to work.
Esmeralda's first language is not English. But that's okay because my hearing is very selective, so I couldn't hear half of what she said that I could understand - which was about half of what came out of her mouth. Basically, I told her I needed a haircut, and she took it from there. Here's how it went (sorta, anyway):
Me: Please cut my hair. In layers. It is very curly and needs help.
Esmeralda: Yoo-ah ha-yer eez velly pretty. I vill vash and use product and eet wheel be very preety.
Me: Super.
We go to the shampoo chair and Esmeralda washes and conditions with her special curly hair stuff and tells me how wonderful the curly products are.
Esmeralda: See, Thelma over there, she uses the curly products and her ha-yer is velly pretty.
Me: (thinking to myself): Yes, but she is 17 years old. You could shave her head and she would still be velly pretty.
Esmeralda - And Jane over there, she uses the curly products, but she flat-irons her ha-yer. But when she uses the curly products, her ha-yer is velly pretty.
Me: (thinking more to myself): Then why does she flat iron it?
Anyhow, Esmeralda gets me back to the hair-cutting station where she snips here and there, puts more curly product (put eet on yore hands and squeesh them together and get the cream in between yore feengers and put eet all through your hair) on my hair, rumples it around, sprays some different curly product on (eet won't make yore ha-yer stiff like cardboard) and crumples my hair some more. Basically, I now have a curly, crumply head of hair that may not be stiff like cardboard - but it certainly ain't movin' in a tornado, either.
Anyhow, after buying all the curly products and paying Esmeralda, I leave the store with a few strands of my hair trimmed. I am somewhat satisfied and return to my vacation resort.
Where I promptly got out the flat iron and straightened my hair.
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Today's blessings: Safe flight back to Nashville for Sam, Lynnette, and Lindley; lunch with Molly and Adam; dinner at Sci-Fi with Steve, Molly, Adam, and Maribeth; chatty bus driver enroute to Hollywood Studios
