So, what if you get your haircut and no one says anything? Does that mean it is such a subtle change they just think you finally bothered to brush your hair, which isn’t something polite to point out. Hey, you finally took a comb to that rats nest on your head! Or does it mean it is so hideous that to even say oh, you got your hair cut would be to draw attention to a horrible mistake?
Today, I got so sick of my gray hairs and so sick of my just lie-there-and-look-like-I’ve-given-up hair that I went and got it colored and cut. In French, no less! I threw caution to the wind… I didn’t bother to go to the place I went before… I marched right into the place where I took Kaitlyn for her haircut and announced je voudrais un couleur et coupe, sil vous plait. Two and a half hours later I was sending a text message to Bill warning him that while I am pleased with the outcome, he may not be. Was that a little passive aggressive of me?
What happened in between ranged from boredom to happiness to shear terror.
Explaining that I don’t want gray hair was easy enough… I could point to the abundance of it all over my head. There was a color book with little wisps of fake hair and I easily settled on the color called cafe. Seemed oh, so appropriate. The hairdresser stopped her mixing to come out and tell me something in fast French; I had no idea what she was saying. I recognized the word blanc and finally just said oui so she would just go back to what she’d been doing. Then she came out and started glopping the glop on my hair… and it was white. For a few seconds, I actually feared that I had just agreed to let her dye all of my hair white. I started to think of ways to cover my head: hats, wigs. But then I realized that made no sense. I had clearly said pas gris and pointed at my roots. Once I had calmed myself down, the stuff on my head was starting to turn brown. She must have been trying to warn me that it starts out white but not to panic. Wish I’d understood her!
Then came the trim. Well, it started as a trim. I thought maybe it would be best to get this woman on my side, so to speak. So after repeating un peu a dozen times, I figured I’d let her weigh in on the mental battle I’ve been having with myself… return to wearing bangs or leave my big ol’ forehead exposed. I asked Vous pensez…. then sort of moved my hair across my forehead to act out bangs. She was thrilled and started talking more fast French. When I had my patented blank stare on she grabbed a magazine and showed me a picture. I thought we were just agreeing on how the bangs look. Nope. We were agreeing on the entire hair cut. Cut being the operative word. Her scissors started flying and chunks of hair were sent sailing through the air. I felt like I was in a bad dream sequence from Scrubs. Then I started to think of ways to cover my head: hats, wigs. Pretty soon the hair stopped flying and the assistant was shown the picture and told to dry my hair like that. Then the hairdresser went over to the other customer, who was French, and fired up her scissors over there.. sending her hair flying. I watched that woman in the mirror. She had a look of terror in her eyes as she watched the bits of hair soar all around her. I suspect it is the same look I’d had probably since sitting down. But, voila, when my hair was dry not only did it look pretty much just like the picture, it looked good. A little shorter than I’d intended when I went in, but I left happy.
Je n’ai pas besoin d’un chapeau ou d’une perruque!