Would you like an AARP membership with that hairdo?

On my recent visit to the hair salon, I complimented my stylist on her new hairdo. It hung sweetly around her face. I did not realize at first that it was rather radically shaved in the back, but it suited her.

"Oh, I had to do SOMETHING," she said, with her characteristic Irish accent. "One day I looked in the mirror, and" -- here she assumed a look of horror -- "I'd turned into me mother!"

I sympathized with her. Earlier that week, a receptionist at my mother's dentist's office had remarked how much I looked like my mother. 

My mother had just had two teeth extracted, and was not looking particularly her best. Plus, she is 87 years old. 

Seeing that I did not share her viewpoint, but evidently completely failing to understand why, the receptionist warmed to her subject.

"Look at some pictures of your mother at your age," she urged. "I'll bet she looked just like you."

I HAD looked at pictures of my mother at my age. She was very attractive, but she did not look anything like I do now. 

I shared this tale with my stylist. "My mother is 87," I said. "She's a wonderful person, and I love her, but I really don't want to look like her." 

"Oh, heavens, no," she said. "No one ever wants to look like their mum. I love me mother, too, God rest her soul, but I don't want to look like her. Forgive me, mum," she said contritely, looking heavenward. "I sure hope she's not hearing me from up there, saying how I don't want to be all jowly in the chin like her."

She was incensed that a young salesman had recently asked her whether she was an AARP member. "The impertinence!" she said. "What age do you become a senior citizen? 65? 60? 55?" 

"I think it varies," I said. "But some places might say 55."

She sighed. "I'm already one, then. But for goodness' sake you don't ask someone if they're an AARP member. Not even if they look 90."

In an attempt to distance herself from resembling her mother, and indignant at being taken for a senior citizen, she had undergone a radical haircut. "You could wear this look too," she said.

There is a tendency among people, which I would do well to ponder more often before I open my mouth, to believe that if you compliment them on something -- a hairdo, new shoes, a piece of art -- you would be pleased to have whatever it is for yourself. Certain family members, in fact, use this method to determine what to get other family members for birthdays, Christmas, etc.* ("You really liked my sleeveless vest jacket, so here you go!" "You really seemed to like the new kitten, so...")

So far the compliment trick has not worked with high-end vehicles, however.

And now my admiration of the stylist's haircut had put me in peril of having part of my head shaved. But she hastened to say that I wouldn't have to go THAT extreme. "And not now," she said reassuringly. "Just something to think about." I was profoundly grateful. 

But she was inspired now, and she cut my hair on a slight angle from back to front. I did not really notice until I got home and the Hero, who has become sensitive to my feeling caught between his opinion of my hair and the stylist's opinion, and my feeling that MY opinion does not count for much, said, "You look sort of New Yorkish." 

"Good," I said. "I don't think my mother ever looked New Yorkish."