The Longest Haircut

Last night my mom showed up to babysit. It shouldn't have been unexpected, my parents babysit most Friday nights, but we had all convinced ourselves that Mom was in Chicago with my brother's kids and Dad was too busy with his last weekend of Tax Season. Gene and I hadn't given a thought to where we were going to eat or what we were going to do. While we were eating, I was complaining/making fun of myself about all the things I always plan to get done during vacation and never do. Most involve house or yardwork, but I also wanted to take Kaylin to a couple of movies and especially get a haircut. I hate the time commitment of a haircut. No matter how desperately I need one, I usually talk myself out of it. Now that I have Fridays and Saturdays off (instead of Sundays and Mondays) I could actually find myself a real (um) hair cutter person, but the guy I used to go to moved and I don't have the energy, interest or desire to find a replacement. That means walk-in places and long waits for mediocre cuts and bad dye jobs.

Gene teased that he was going to "force" me to get a haircut. He would be happy to shop at Dollar Tree while he waited. We pulled up to the shop and there was only one person waiting! Ok, this is a good idea! I walked in, signed in and was told "a few minutes." This was right at 7pm, apparently the time shifts end, because half the staff left. Eh, still, there were three cutters and only one person ahead of me. Wrong. As soon as the person ahead of me was called back, a dad and his two sons walked in. They were already signed in. Well, they shouldn't take too long, right? Pfffff. Ok, so now we have three ladies cutting hair. One is doing a complicated double dye job with foils and dark on bottom and bleached on top. One is doing a strangely complicated Mohawk for a perfectionist who wants the curves perfect. One is finishing up some guy and is about to start on the dad (of the unknown group ahead of me.) Ok, I'm here, I'm going to wait.

Gene strolled in about 7:30, walked right past me in the waiting room and looked around the chairs, confused about where I disappeared to. I told him I was going to be a while since I still had three people ahead of me. Another dad and son that arrived after me heard this news and walked out. I knew Dye Job was out of the running. She was going to be working on one person until the store closed. The dad didn't take long and the same lady did his son. The other lady FINALLY finished Mr. Perfect Mohawk and following a five minute break called back the other son. Well, the dad was being a perfectionist about his sons' hair. He didn't care if it was long, but both boys were wearing it hanging in their eyes and he was having none of that! They finally got everything straightened out and I was called back at 7:45pm. (Yeah, I can accept that 10-15 minutes is "a few minutes," but 45? That's more than a few!)

I had noticed that the woman cutting my hair had taken a long time on the dad's relatively simple man cut, but I thought maybe I was just being impatient. I sat down, told her what I wanted done and she took me back to the sink to be washed. FIFTEEN minutes later... I have never in my life had such a shampoo! This woman massaged my entire scalp! Little circular massaging motions. Then she rinsed for a really long time and just when I thought I was finally going to sit up- Conditioner!!! The exact same massaging process repeated. I was almost laughing out loud by the time I finally got to get up and go back to the chair.

She then started on the back of my hair, slowly working through it with razor combs. She moved on to the sides and top, jerk, jerk, jerking the not quite sharp enough comb through my thick, thick hair. The cut went on and on. We walked out of the hair place at 8:32. A 45 minute wait, a 45 minute cut. Most of the time, the entire process of shampoo and cut takes 15-20 minutes total. THEN, I paid with a debit card and wrote in a tip. She somehow subtracted the tip from the base price and had to get someone to help her. After many efforts, I don't think I ended up tipping her anything. I guess I'll see when the transaction goes through. At least my cut is so short I should be able to go at least two months without another!