A Haircut Saga

I've determined there are two kinds of stress (now really I'm sure the medical community has determined this about 100 years ago but I'm only grasping it now so work with me here):

1. TOO MUCH TO DO AND NO TIME TO DO IT AND EVERYTHING'S HAPPENING AT ONNNNNNNNCE!!!!! stress.

2. Slow seepage stress. Aka, the stress of not knowing what you are doing with your life. Sure, you get 8 hours of sleep and your heart stays at a nice resting pace, but in the past week, this kind of stress has still caused me:
a. 3 pimples on my chin (and not the curable ones--the lurkers)
b. 1 canker sore (Which is different from a cold sore. From what I hear from cold sore sufferers, canker sores are much more painful, although infinitely less embarrassing.)
c. The kind of cold that, when you're healthy, you think only wimps would be affected by. But when you actually have it, you think you might die. Seriously, how do you have a stuffy nose, runny nose, and so-clear-it-hurts nose AT THE SAME TIME?! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?
Okay. Calm down, Emily.
YOU CALM DOWN.
Juuuuuust breathe.
I CAN'T BREATHE BECAUSE OF THIS GODFORSAKEN NOSE.
Great now I have multiple personalities
YOUR MOM HAS MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES.
YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH ABOUT MY MOTHER!

So this is the state I was in when I went to the hairdresser yesterday.

In order for you to understand my story, I need to explain a little about my hair. Stay with me, this is key. Currently, I have a chin-length bob. Kind of like Rihanna here, but a little longer, brunette, and without the talent.



I've been needing a trim for about a week or two now--but not technically a trim. My hair was getting heavy at the bottom, kind of like in the late 90's, before layers. Like Claire Danes hair here:



All I needed was someone to use those *shink shink* scissors to thin it out. I have gone to this place before, and it should have been a 4-second fix, done for free to tide me over until I needed to come in for a full-on haircut.

Yes, I said SHOULD have. Walk with me.

So my hairdesser is a half hour walk, and it was drizzling outside. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be walking there for nothing, so I called to make sure they weren't running around like chickens already. I tried to be as clear as possible that it should be a quick trim, in and out in a few minutes. She said "Our next available appointment is for 1:30." Again, I tried to emphasize that it should only be like a nothing, like not even a trim, just a quick fix. *Silence.* So okay, yeah, 1:30. 1:30 okay. Exactly 1:30. It's better. Thank you, Dr. M/lady on the phone.

When I arrived, there were two women at the front desk, one woman with tin foil in her hair reading a magazine, and me. (And Lady Gaga, but she was only there in sound.) I introduced myself, they had me take a seat while they...I don't know, discussed what they wanted for lunch, I think. Finally Rosa sat me down (I've never had her before) and I said hi. She said nothing.

Oh boy. Here is the next problem: I am intimidated by hair dressers for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I turn beat red as soon as I describe my hair and what it needs. Every time. No matter how well I know the person. Later, Joe told me "You practically act like they're celebrities! What if John Krasinski was cutting your hair?!" "I would die. I would actually have a heart attack and die." I don't know what it is, I just get so nervous around them! Maybe it's the fact that I'm looking in the mirror, watching myself talk that gets me so self-conscious. I don't know what it is.

Anyway, I tried to tell the woman that I just need a nothing, a little, just like it's getting heavy in the front and I want to take out some of the weight, or whatever, you know, it got kind of curly in the rain but like, I mean, and the weight, with my hair, like not the length, just like, with the--

Finally Rosa stopped me (THANK GOD or we would have been there all day) and said "okay so basically just some of the weight out of the bottom." YES. THANK YOU.

She said, "Okay, so what I want to do is shampoo you, blow dry, straighten it, and then we can see where we're at.

What I SHOULD have said was: "No."
What I DID say was "Oh....................kay."
See, the thing is, I had JUST washed it. Like an hour earlier. And all that work sounded like WAY too much for just the quick snip I knew this should be. But I was already beat red from trying to talk, and my brain just stopped functioning. I guess I figured: I had done all I can to explain that this was a quick, free trim I was looking to get, and if she wanted to wash my hair, I guess that was fine.

And then the woman washed my hair, blow dried my hair, and straightened my hair with such attention to detail, such care, that I realized: this was not a free cut. She even added the oils. THE OILS, PEOPLE. And you know what that means.

Finally, she got to the part I had wanted in the first place. She takes out her scissors and roughly ten seconds later, my hair is the way I want it. Of course.

So I walked up to the counter, realizing that this haircut was not going to be free. I told her I belong to Cheetah Gym which means I get a 15% discount. And I hoped that she realized how little hair she actually cut and not charge me full price.

"That'll be $52 dollars."
WHAT?!?!?!?!??!?! ARE YOU INSAAAANNNNNEEEEE!?!!??!?!?!?!? I DON'T EVEN PAY THAT MUCH WHEN I ACTUALLY GET A REAL HAIRCUT HERE!

...is what I should have screamed.

Instead, I handed her my credit card, while a single tear rolled down my face. I didn't know what to do. I am so not a confrontation person. You could serve me food at a restaurant with a cockroach in the middle of it and I would politely eat around it and go home. So.....*siiiiigh*....I still tipped the woman. In fact, I tipped her ten WHOLE dollars. What I'm saying to you is, I just got my hair styled for $62. I just got a $62 blow dry.

To prove to you guys how very very flustered I was by the whole thing, though, I put the $10 in one of those little envelopes for tipping (even though she was standing right there) and where it said "From" I wrote (and this is true): Emyl.

...E. M. Y. L. That was how I spelled MY OWN NAME.

The icing on the cake is, since it was rainy, as soon as I stepped outside, everything that woman had just done for the past hour was completely ruined. I had just paid $62 for a blow dry that lasted 2 minutes.

Finally, this morning I called the place to explain my situation. He said they usually give free cuts if it's to fix a problem from a recent cut, or to trim bangs. But not for that. And the woman I saw was apparently JUDO MASTER level, hence the steep price. So he couldn't do anything for me. Really, I'm the idiot who thought I could go in for a free haircut and should have just stuck it out with my heavy hair.

Well, what's done is done. My hair looks better now at least? I mean, I got what I wanted, I just paid a billion dollars for it. So if you see me in the next month or so, I'd appreciate it if you tell me my hair looks amazing and I should be a model. It's the only way I'll keep my stress level down and these zits off my chin.