I should have known better.

Just ask my husband how it is being around me when I get a bad haircut and he’ll tell you how he’s learned not to say anything at all.  If he says he likes it, I jump down his throat and call him crazy.  If he says he doesn’t like it, it confirms my miserable opinion and it puts me in an even worse mood, if that’s possible.

He tries to be out of town on haircut days.  If he’s not out of town, he tiptoes into the back door and sort of tests my mood before he even pretends to notice the haircut.  He’s a smart man.

So why would I even try to tempt fate when it comes to my hair?  Like I said, I should have known better.

Women know what I’m talking about when I say that one day my hair is great.  Then the next morning I go try to fix it, and it’s impossible.  I need a haircut, and I need one today.  I didn’t need one yesterday, but if I don’t get one today, I think I’m gonna die.  Well, I have a regular hairstylist who gives me really great haircuts, but when I call on a crisis day, she always says “how about sometime next week?”  She’s a busy woman.

So it was on one of these crisis days that I happened to be in the mall in Houston and passed by the chain haircut place that had a big sign out front, “We take walk-ins.”  I walked in.  I had a pit in my stomach because I knew I would be scolded by my regular stylist.  Even at 45, I’m terrified of getting in trouble.

I sat down in a chair and felt pretty apprehensive when my hairdresser introduced herself.  She looked about 12. This was not looking good and I wondered if I should get up and run.  How bad could it be, though?            

I visited at length with her about what I wanted.  I told her I wanted it chin-length in front, shorter in the back.  What I didn’t want was what I call the “pixie-do”, where it’s longer in the back with little curls coming up around my cheeks.

When she was through, I could have been the poster child for Pixies of the World. All I needed was shoes with curly toes and bells.  I was near tears, and she fessed up she had never done this haircut before.  No kidding?!

My family avoided me for days.  They knew better.  At the office one of the guys said, with his nose all scrunched up, “Eew, you got your hair cut.”  They had to call the ambulance after I was through clawing his eyes out.  Okay, in my imagination I clawed his eyes out.

The worst part was calling my hairdresser.  “Oh Great One, please forgive me for my transgression.  I will kiss the ground you walk on if you can fix this mess.”

She was pretty good about not clucking her tongue too loudly when she saw it. She fixed it. 

And I promised to never go to “Weehackem” again.