Life Imitating Life

      Everyone has gotten a bad hair cut at one time or another in their lives. And yes, hair grows but the crappy cut ALWAYS seems to come just when your hair’s the longest its ever been and you go in to have ½ inch of split ends cut off and the brand new stylist gets scissor happy and takes off 3 inches (all uneven) so if you want it repaired you have to go shorter or grin and bear it and go around with it uneven until it grows out. Or instead of letting your attendant do your highlights like always and they always look great, you decide to spring for ‘’professional foils’’ since you’re already at the salon for a trim and your lovely long locks end up getting fried by the chemicals and a super hot flat iron from the 1970’s.

      I could have cried right there under my spock-like crooked bangs but I didn’t. I came home instead and let it ruin the rest of my day, being miserable to my caretakers and Eric. Then came day two, well I couldn’t stand looking at it anymore so I called the salon and demanded to speak to the manager. I told her my side of the story and she offered to meet with me today. So armed with four recent photos from my portfolio I went back to the salon and the manager and I had a long discussion about my haircut and foil highlights, she was very accommodating and started me out with a deep conditioning treatment which she gave me $30.00 worth to take home. She then gave me two options: she would cut and style my hair free of charge and refund the money to me for the botched foils or just refund all my money, send me home with the deep conditioner and be available for my next haircut. I was very skeptical of course, but she assured me she had the right cut for me that would do away with most of the damage while sparing the length of my hair. She brought out her hair style book and showed me a style I actually had tried to get the time before this mess and it looked as if the stylist had actually put a spaghetti bowl over my head and trim a layer of hair around it and she proudly called  it “long layers”.    

      However, after relaying this story to Angela (the manager) she again and again assured me she had 18 years of experience and could make my hair look EXACTLY like the model’s. Well, now it seemed I had a decision to make. I could suffer though the awkward growing out phase, using spray, ointment, and cream leave in conditioners and constantly messing with it just to make it look HALF decent or I could take a bigger risk and once again give up control and place it in another person’s hands which is exactly what I chose to do. To make a long story short, the haircut turned out nice, it removed most of the damaged hair and I got to keep most of my length. I received a refund on the highlights, was given $30.00 dollars in deep conditioning product, and Angela gave me her card with a coupon for my next haircut. Little does she know, I plan to grow my hair out yet again.

      Now, the reason I told you this was story was because it could be an analogy to another situation in life. Just when things in your life are finally the way you always wanted them and you only need to tie up a few loose threads. So thinking you’re acting responsibly you visit your psychiatrist, clergyman or therapist for a bit of advice, nothing major mind you, and not only does taking their advice make matters worse but it actually causes problems that didn’t exist before you met with him/her. So now you have a big problem where there wasn’t any before.

      Of course, you could wait and see if everything works itself out dealing with all that unnecessary anxiety, worry, and insecurity; fending off all little problems, attacks and disappointments with your well practiced and sincere wit, intelligence and sheer force of will. Or go back to where to you got the advice in the first place and demand some answers to your situation now made worse by the first council you received, an apology and an answer to escape this current situation. But you’ll probably just be told that “Hey, you asked me, remember?”

      But seriously, the haircut thing really DID happen. I’ll have pictures soon enough. Thanks for indulging me, friends.