It was a time when I was as mad as a meat ax, neurotic as hell, especially when it came to my hair. This was despite the fact I had long, wavy, beautiful hair. Which I hated. It was the 80's, so I decided to to fix the problem and have a cut and a perm.
Swish salon, lovely gay boy to do the deed. We chat happily. He starts with the color. It's not quite right and there's less chat which is also less happy. I'm just not sure. He does the cut.
I look at those long strands on the floor and realize how beautiful my hair was. Now, its disembodied, deserted, cut from it's source.
"We'll perm now," says the gay boy.
"Sure," I say bravely.
"Really sure?"
"Totally."
So he does the perm, then the rinse.
Oh dear, what have I done? Shock, but definitely not awe. I burst into tears. It is an awful, terrible monstrosity. I morph from despair to rage, totally crazy rage.
"Wait till it dries," he says, but that falls on deaf ears.
"I'm not paying for this!" My indignation is scary. I refuse to pay, storm out and have several panic attacks on the way home. There, I recount the horror of the experience to my loved one.
"Calm down, wash your face," he says.
I look in the mirror, fluff the hair up a bit. It looks really nice, it really does. In fact, it looks terrific.
But immediately my mood morphs to acute anxiety.
"Oh my god," I say to the loved one. "How will I go back? Tell them I really love it? Apologize? Pay? My God, what have I done?"
2,187
