Haircut - An Odessey

We were drowning in a sea of wiry strands, detaching themselves from my scalp on a regular basis. It wasn’t just when I ran my fingers through my hair or combed it; I shed hair all the time. If I walked a little briskly or turned my head a little too quickly or if there was a breeze from an open door or window or if I stood under the air conditioner. It seemed that not much force was needed to nudge those little buggers loose. Hair was everywhere. Our tiles are white so the dark hair is very visible. Being the length it was made it easy enough to see and pick up. The wiry grey ones were harder to see, but they shimmered silver in the light on everything else. The couch, the cushions, my clothes, the children. Vacuuming the carpet was an ordeal. In fact just walking barefoot meant tangled strands between your toes. If you rub the carpet long enough you collect a ball of hair the size of an adult fist. Yuk.

I’d been contemplating having a haircut for a while now. I was desperate for a trim at the very least, but the acceleration of the hair loss was making me desperate. Nobody tells you much about postpartum shedding. Other mothers mention it, but don’t go into much detail. Most mothers experience it and it passes. Like everything else that happens to your body after you have a baby. It’s the hormones, they keep telling me. I really needed a haircut. It had been ages. I wanted short hair for summer, but I mulled over the idea for so long, it was now nearly winter, so I’ll have short hair over winter instead. Whatever. 

I'd pinned a million photos on Pinterest. I'd done this before; gone from really long hair to a short bob. Bang. One hit. No in between. So it was no big deal. My biggest obstacle was leaving the house for long enough to have it done, in between breastfeeding my now four month old twins. My eldest, 22 months, I can leave for hours and as long as someone else is entertaining her, she doesn't even know I'm gone til I come back. But the babies are still on a very tight loop. They need me two hourly for a drink. And I need them. I need to see them and touch them and hear them and tend to their needs. It’s about me too. I’m still adjusting to them being outside my body too.

It shouldn't take that long to get a haircut though. The shops are nearby, maybe a five minute drive away. They're renovating the car park so getting a parking spot on a Saturday morning could be tricky, but I have other options like street parking or abandoning the car in the middle of the new roundabout. So that’s a five minute drive, let's say ten minutes to park - if less it's a bonus. The bugger is whether or not they'll make me wait. It doesn't matter if you make an appointment - anywhere, not just at the hairdresser's; doctors, mechanics, accountants, whatever; an appointment is an indicator of the time of day (morning, noon or night) give or take a few hours on either side. No one actually sees you at your appointment time. That's a bloody myth. So I call ahead to suss out what the situation is. Calling ahead won’t make any difference, I know that already. It just makes me feel like I’ve covered all the bases. 

I only want a wash and cut. That's extravagant for me. I normally go in there having just washed my hair. I go in with wet hair if I want a wet cut, dry if I want a dry cut. This time I felt like indulging. I was sick of the time it took to comb out all the loose, wet hair after washing it. I'd let them do it. They won't have to detangle it anyway; they're cutting it off!

So I call them. I ask if I need an appointment. They tell me no, only if I'm having a colour or something complicated like an apartment block built on my head. Good, ok. The girl was so chirpy for a Saturday morning. ‘Come on in’, she said. It gave me the final motivation to just pack my boobs away and run. I left them all as is. No nappy change, no swaddling and rocking to sleep. I did up my top and fled out the door with my husband's car keys. If I looked back or thought about it, I'd change my mind again.

No traffic and a pretty easy parking spot. I couldn't believe my luck. Everything was aligning. I was doing this. I was even contemplating a hot beverage, but no time for that just yet. I walked into the salon to be greeted by three hairdressers busy cutting hair, all their chairs occupied and two people in the waiting area calmly reading magazines. Oh oh. First hurdle. I was going to have to wait. I smiled meekly at the closest hairdresser. 

'Hello. I called earlier about a wash and cut'.
Snarly, grimace faced silence. She wasn't the perky girl I'd spoken to on the phone. This was her very wicked and angry co-worker who fucking hated Saturday mornings and all customers who dared to interrupt her very important self.
'Just wondering what the wait time is for a wash and cut. It’s just that I have twin babies at home that I need to feed….hehehe'. I instantly felt pathetic for trying to appeal to her womanhood. She didn’t give a shit.
I'm not kidding she was a dragon.
'Grrrrrrraaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. THERE ARE TWO PEOPLE WAITING...' *motions to the waiting area right in front of my face that I am clearly just noticing now*.....SO AFTER THEM THEN YOU, OK?'

Fucken hell. This woman hated her life….and my face.

I mumbled something about trying the other hairdressers in the center and maybe coming back....she may have stabbed the customer she was working on with her scissors and turned over the nearest brush trolley, I'm not sure, but I ran out of there. I was wasting valuable time.

Hair salon No.2. It was completely empty except for a very young girl, maybe 8 or 19....I don't know, I couldn't tell, she had a freaking tonne of make up on her face, like she'd face planted in a muddy puddle. I think she had blue mascara on. No one is born with blue eyelashes, so she wasn't going for a natural look. Fair enough. She was honest about it. Good for her.

She approached the counter inquisitively, as though she had no idea why I would be in there at all. What could this older woman possibly want? Is she looking for center management to inquire about a mobility scooter and just stumbled into the wrong place? Do nearly old people get haircuts at a salon? Don’t they just sheer at their hair with butter knives?

'Yes, how can I help you?' At least she was friendly.
'Any chance of having a wash and cut?' I said confidently. Confident I'd get a haircut because there was nobody else in there. Not confident that she wouldn't ruin my hair with those rounded blade craft scissors, because there was no way this child was old enough to use real shears.
'Um.....ssssshhh....sorry, we're completely booked out today' she said smugly, shrugging her shoulders. 

Bullshit. She was just scared of catching grey hair. Or maybe they really were booked; I wasn’t sure why it felt personal. Same goes for the dragon lady. I’m sure her hostility wasn’t about me either.

The only place left was the real cheap place or the real expensive place. Then I realised, the real expensive place had shut down due to the renovations; so I went into the real cheap place. 

Well. I had walked into the United Nations. All the skin colours were represented in the very diverse and friendly staff. They were all busy cutting hair and there were a couple of people waiting. Shit....time was ticking. I think like 15 minutes had passed already. I approached the counter. This very lovely man with a European accent - maybe Dutch, maybe Nordic, spoke to me. I don't know what he said because I was completely hypnotised by his very white teeth. They were luminous, they blinded me. I couldn't look at anything else. I wonder if he noticed. Is that why people whiten their teeth? So you look at their mouth and hear every word they say, or none of them? I don't know, I just couldn't look anywhere else. They made his eye balls look yellow.

He said there was maybe a 40 minute wait because there were two people waiting and the haircut would take maybe half an hour so that's 70 minutes. He was very specific and very good at maths and said he could put my name down on the waiting list. I told him about the twins and breastfeeding too and that I'd come back after I sussed out the other salons. What the hell is wrong with me that I feel the need to put a mental image of my boobs in everyone that I encounter’s mind…I’m doing it right now. You’re probably picturing my boobs. Stop it. STOP IT!

I was feeling a little desperate by now. I stood outside the shop for a minute and spun around a few times confused. I must have looked so lost and completely deranged. I had three choices. Wait at the cheap place that was very friendly, go to the brand place with the arsehole woman and wait the same amount of time or just abandon ship and go home with my long, shedding, dirty hair and Pinterest how to cut your own hair again.

I went back to see the dragon, because I'm a glutton for punishment like that. Well actually, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and I thought maybe the wait time was less. Really it was just the name of the salon that was making me question my decision. The brand name versus the cheap brand…..in the end I knew that it meant nothing. I’d get a good haircut if the hairdresser was good, it didn’t really matter who they worked for.

She was still an arsehole.

I told her given her lack of enthusiasm at my presence in her shop I would go elsewhere. And I'll never go back there again. I went and bought that hot drink, thinking I could very well go and throw it in her scowling face, but I didn't. I drank it during my eventual haircut.

I put my name down at the global melting pot (incidentally their shampoo brand is called Justice), cheap brand shop and sat and waited and with every passing minute my heart raced. I knew the babies would still be asleep, but that didn’t alleviate my anxiety, because I didn’t know when they would wake and where I would be. I could still leave, but once I was in it, with wet hair and mid cut, there’d be no turning back. Every second felt like forever. People kept coming to sit in the waiting area and as each hairdresser finished with their client and I was sure they’d call me next, someone else’s name was called and more people were returning to wait and to be called before me. I wondered where I actually was in the queue. When I agreed to put my name down there was nobody in the shop. I hadn’t realised that they’d all wandered off to get a coffee. I was starting to think that Mr shiny teeth had minimised his wait time guess. Just as I was feeling the strong urge to bolt, they called my name.

The very nice woman representing white people called me to her chair. She wanted to discuss my hair before starting. Very good sign.

The chair she wanted me to sit on was covered in someone else's hair. Bad sign.

You win some, you lose some.

After having a very mature and thorough conversation about my shedding, me apologising for leaving a trail of hair through the waiting area and leaving my babies at home, she asked me where I wanted my hair to sit and told me that I have a very low hair line (hairy neck). I made all my usual jokes about grey hair and having twins and being menopausal when my kids reach puberty and my poor husband - she found none of this amusing, in fact she took every word I said very seriously and validated my feelings - and then she walked away and left me there. I thought she went to get something, but she just didn't come back for like four hours. Well 2 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Bad, bad sign. I took a sip of my tea and scalded my tongue. Where the hell was she?

She came back eventually. She showed me her index finger and its jagged nail. She'd chipped her nail and didn't have an emery board. She was worried she'd scratch me. Very good sign, she was very considerate. I mentioned I had babies whose fingernails were like kitten claws.

She motioned me over to the sink and started to wash my hair. I'm not too sure what happened over the next few minutes because she proceeded to massage conditioner into my scalp. I couldn't contain my pleasure. She told me I deserved it and that it was just as pleasurable for her. I wasn't fearful of embarrassing myself by appearing to climax...I was afraid I might fart. Sometime later I had to bring myself to stand and walk over to the dreaded mirror seat and I did so groggily. However, this time I was ready. I always look like shit in those mirrors, but I made the effort that morning and put some very subtle make up on and I didn't look like a heroin addict.

She went for it. No hesitation. She cut off my hair. She sectioned the soaked locks and only combed the knots down to where she was cutting just as I thought she would. Before too long I had short hair. She then reached into a drawer and brought out the razor comb. I was still dizzy from the head massage and wasn't quick enough to stop her before realising what she was doing; razoring my fringe....

I raised my hand before I spoke because my mouth and brain were still two days behind my vision from that scalp rub. She stopped dead.

'I prefer if you didn't razor my hair. It's too aggressive.....and....the frizz....it looks good right now, but tomorrow......crrssshhhhhh, it'll be nuts!'

She apologised. No ego, no dramas. She thought to thin it out, but understood where I was coming from. 

And that was it. Before I knew it the whole ordeal was over. My hair was still dripping wet. I hadn't asked for a blow dry so she shagged it out with her hands a bit and that was it. She took the plastic shawl off and walked to the counter.

They had a special offer. Buy two products and get a free pair of sunnies. So I bought the shampoo and conditioner with the hope of maybe experiencing through some sort of aromatic memory trigger even a fraction of that head massage. I took my pair of sunnies and my goodie bag and I was out the door. 

I could have shopped and browsed for another hour, but I didn't. I bolted to the car and drove home. When I arrived, the house was calm. The babies were still asleep and my husband was quietly playing with my eldest. No body starved.

The haircut took some years off my face, but the experience put them back on. Still, I know it will get easier and now I have the taste for freedom, I’m looking for the next excuse to abdicate.