Just let me out!

From Sam's Club (see previous blog) I headed home to unload the groceries, minus a spider. There was no time to grab lunch before my hair appointment, and I knew this was a big mistake. I do not operate well without food. But there wasn't much choice. Missing a hair appointment is like missing a medical appointment -- you get a stern lecture and a warning that they might drop you altogether.

So I already had the beginnings of a headache when I went to the salon. I knew I would be there for a minimum of an hour and a half, possibly longer. Maybe I could just sleep through everything.

But instead of enjoying a relaxing, soothing shampoo and pleasant conversation, my head immediately fell under assault. Each individual strand of hair, it seemed, need to be painted with a cold, gooey dye. Judging by the amount of color remover roughly applied to my ears, throat, cheeks, eyelids, etc., the rest of me was being inadvertently painted along with my hair.

My headache continued to grow, and I was starving. I was left to "process" for about a half hour. "Can I get you anything while you wait?" the stylist asked.

How about a nice chicken salad sandwich and some chips? I wanted to say, but said only, "A glass of water would be great, thanks."

I had had to take my glasses off while the goop went on, and I am blind as the proverbial bat without them. I thought the fuzzy pile of something on the counter in front of me might consist of reading material, and so I reached for it. The first "magazine" proclaimed that J. Lo had had a sex change and her name was now Lo Mein. It only made me hungrier. I put that one down and got another one. I held it an inch from my face to read the large title Country Living.

While I was absorbed in reading about the restoration of an 1840s farmhouse in Connecticut, I heard someone asking whether anyone wanted to order from the pizza place. I caught myself just before raising my hand and saying "I'll take a large with anything on it!"

I had gone through that magazine, four others, and was about to start gnawing on the food advertisements when a cheery voice announced that I was done processing and that Michelle would wash my hair. Would I care to step over to the basin? I would, if I could see it. I dimly made out the shape of what appeared to be a person, or possibly a mannequin. I was relieved when the shape spoke. This must be Michelle, which meant I was heading in the right direction.

Now, it's possible that this was Michelle's first time washing someone else's hair. I'm sure it is not as easy as it looks, especially keeping the water from escaping the basin and spraying all over the client or oneself. My face was continuously splashed throughout the wash. Then Michelle made a yelping sound, dropped the hose, and looked in dismay at the front of her shirt. The water was soaking into it at an alarming rate. At least, this is what I gathered, for I couldn't actually see it myself. But I'm sure it was not a pleasant feeling. She complained that this was the very reason she didn't like to wash under clients' necks, as this misfortune tended to occur. I got the feeling that somehow the clients, in this case me, were slightly to blame in these situations; perhaps our necks were curved in just such a manner as to cause the water to spray completely away from them onto the hapless washer.

Normally a wash at the salon is very soothing to the head, and I had had great hopes that my headache would be somewhat assuaged. But after the water incident, Michelle did not seem to harbor any goodwill toward my head. It was pounded, squeezed, and squooshed until I thought I would scream. The water was boiling hot, then ice cold. Michelle called for more color remover. I began to fear I would go home with a ring of brown dye around my face and neck, and I wanted to ask if I could take some of the remover home with me, just in case.

I was told to sit upright when she was finished. Water poured from my hair into my eyes and ears. I expected a towel to appear, but it went instead to mopping up Michelle's soaked shirt. She did finally wrap my hair turban-style, which felt kind of good on my aching head, but I wanted in the worst way to dry out my ears. I was afraid the water might affect my balance, and then I would be able to neither see nor hear. She turned me in the direction of the stylist's station and told me to go sit down.

The stylist unwrapped my turban without drying around my ears. I lunged for the towel but it was already out of reach. I was hungry, my head was pounding, and I still had the haircut to endure. I was getting surly.

In the history of women's haircuts I do not think there has ever been one that took this long. Not only God, but also my stylist, knew the exact number of hairs on my head, for she cut every single one of them individually. Twice. And then thinned them. She looked in the mirror and compared each strand on one side of my head to the corresponding one on the other side.

And all this time she spoke not a word, which might have helped pass the time a little more agreeably. Only once, toward the end when she was applying a liberal amount of styling foam to my beleaguered hair, did she say anything. The foam must have stung her hand, for she yelled "Ouch!" in a very colorful manner. "I keep forgetting about this cut on my palm," she explained.

I hoped that if it had been bleeding at any point while she her hands were digging around in my hair, she would have noticed.

But I was not yet to be released. Every time I thought we must be done, she saw some stray hair that must be whipped back into position. She primped. She sprayed. Primped some more. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't, because the spray choked my throat and threatened to trigger my asthma. Salon Client Dies of Hair Spray Overdose, I imagined the headlines. It smelled like those home sprays you buy at Christmas, the ones that "evoke your childhood memories of the holidays." I smelled like an evergreen tree.

The final insult was what I paid for all this assault. The price had evidently gone up since my last visit, which was in 1984. (Just kidding.) For that price, I thought, I should look like J. Lo, before she became Lo Mein. And speaking of Lo Mein, I needed some lunch.