Tonight was the first time that I was aware of a bad haircut while it was in the process of becoming. Since I have to remove my glasses I don't normally find out whether a haircut is bad until the end when the stylist says, "So how does that look?" But this time, even in the blur of glasseslessness I could tell immediately that a bad haircut was brewing.I went to a beauty college where the students cut your hair for the fabulous low price of $5. I've had mixed results from beauty colleges, but usually I end up looking at semi-respectable at the very least. I gave the stylist-in-training the same simple directions that usually result in a successful haircut: short on the sides and back, a little longer on the top and front. However, her definition of "sides" apparently means "every part of the head except for a one and a half inch strip down the middle of the skull." She went straight for the clippers and buzzed me all the way up the right side of my head so quickly that I wasn't able to stop her until it was too late. "Hey!" I cried out as I put my glasses back on to survey the damage. "Let's stop for a second and make a plan, shall we?" But it was buzzed so short that she had no choice but to replicate her work on the left side as well.
When she finally got the scissors out I could feel how unsteady her hands were as she held my hair between her fingers. I don't know if she is normally that shaky or if I destroyed her confidence by speaking up, but I was on edge for the rest of the haircut. Several times she asked with finality "So how does that look?" with the implication that the haircut was over. And each time there was some glaringly obvious patch of wild hair that I had to point out to her, to which she'd mumble, "Oh... yeah, uh, I was going to fix that... I was just seeing if... uh.. yeah, I was gonna....." Together we neutralized the most egregiously bad spots, but eventually I just didn't want her to be near my hair anymore so I forfeited the fight and surrendered my five dollars.
A few days have now passed since the infamous haircut and each morning as I comb my hair (what's left of it, that is) I discover several previously unnoticed flaws, including some really obvious ones like in the picture on the right.
This experience has helped me realize three things:
1) A good haircut is a miraculous thing. The internet tells me that the average human head has 100,000 hairs and it is quite amazing how apparent it is when just a few of them are different lengths than their immediate neighbors.
2) I was much better off in the past when I found out about my bad haircuts after the fact - it's much less stressful than watching one evolve.
3) Maybe it's time for me to stop patronizing beauty colleges.
P.S. - 1,000 nerd points to whomever can identify the Simpsons episode from which I have taken this post's title without googling, plus 1,000 bonus nerd points for knowing who is credited with writing it.
When she finally got the scissors out I could feel how unsteady her hands were as she held my hair between her fingers. I don't know if she is normally that shaky or if I destroyed her confidence by speaking up, but I was on edge for the rest of the haircut. Several times she asked with finality "So how does that look?" with the implication that the haircut was over. And each time there was some glaringly obvious patch of wild hair that I had to point out to her, to which she'd mumble, "Oh... yeah, uh, I was going to fix that... I was just seeing if... uh.. yeah, I was gonna....." Together we neutralized the most egregiously bad spots, but eventually I just didn't want her to be near my hair anymore so I forfeited the fight and surrendered my five dollars.
A few days have now passed since the infamous haircut and each morning as I comb my hair (what's left of it, that is) I discover several previously unnoticed flaws, including some really obvious ones like in the picture on the right.This experience has helped me realize three things:
1) A good haircut is a miraculous thing. The internet tells me that the average human head has 100,000 hairs and it is quite amazing how apparent it is when just a few of them are different lengths than their immediate neighbors.
2) I was much better off in the past when I found out about my bad haircuts after the fact - it's much less stressful than watching one evolve.
3) Maybe it's time for me to stop patronizing beauty colleges.
P.S. - 1,000 nerd points to whomever can identify the Simpsons episode from which I have taken this post's title without googling, plus 1,000 bonus nerd points for knowing who is credited with writing it.
5 comments:
I thought I knew a lot about the Simpsons, but I don't remember that episode! And good luck with that haircut- the hood news is, it will grow out soon!
"Is there a chance the tracks could bend?" "Not on your life, my Hindu friend!" One of my favorites. (And it's Coco. I could give you the episode name and number, too, but I think my geek is showing.)
I stand by what I said "You get what you pay for!" Good luck next time. ;)
I laughed so hard reading this! Sorry to hear about your experience.
I were a guy I wonder if I would just have had her buzz the whole thing.
So, I am a hair stylist. Having said that, I gather you assume that I was once in beauty school. The entire time I was enrolled I had my hair cut at the school a total of two times. Once by an instructor, once by a girl who was graduating in less than a week. And only because I watched her cut hair for over a year and decided she was good enough to touch the delicate hairs on my head.
I see what some of those girls do in beauty school and don't trust 98% of them. I would only recommend someone to go there if they were getting a perm...and were 75 years old.
This may be terrible of me to say, since I would never had graduated if people didn't trust beauty school students, but it's so true.
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