The hairdressers.
The hairdressers is always a shameful experience for me, as I slink in through the back door and sneak my way up to the counter.
"Shields" I whisper to the trendy lady before me, my hands desperatedly straggling through my own rat-tails in a pathetic attempt to tidy it up a bit. "Susie Shields".
The lady turns round and with one dazzling woosh of silky peroxide blond, she regards my hair like the hasn't-been-cut-for-a-year pile of crap that it is. With one lift of her perfectly plucked eyebrows, she scans down her list and beckons me to a chair.
Sitting in between a five-year old girl with a headful of golden locks coiled up into a beautiful crown, and an old lady with a striking haircut trendier than my own, I gaze glumly into the mirror to see my own reflection: a bare-faced, split-ended vision of horrors. I know I should go to the hairdressers more often, to avoid embarassing situations such as these - the look on every manicured person's face in the room informs me that my bedraggled, unstyled mop of hair is something to be ashamed of - yet somehow I never manage to bring myself to booking an appointement for the recommended every six weeks.
I am paying for this laziness now - after having my hair ruthlessly washed down with a hose in the back garden, I am ushered to another chair, where the true raping of my hair begins. Clips, scissors, and crocodiles jaws all blur around my darting eyes, latching onto my hair in a most undignified manner.
"What way do you wear your hair?" My hairdresser darts a question at me.
"Pardon?" I answer meekly, showing blatant confusion.
"Side? Middle? Inside out, shake it all about?" she barks.
I give a guffawing chuckle, that brings an anxious look to her flawless face about the mental state of her customer. After a few more questions that appear to me to be in a different langauge - "What do you want done to your hair? What do you mean 'more volume? You want volume with layers? What kind of layers? " and so on - she eventually gives up asking me anything to do with my forecoming hairstyle, and instead decides just to do whatever the hell she wants. It is clear that I have no respect for my own hair, anyway.
She does, however, inquire into the history of my hair. As everyone else I have encountered with in the past few months, she "casually" wonders how long it was since my last cut.
"A year" I reply sadly, watching her pretty jaw drop in amazement, convinced that her hand nearly slipped and almost chopped off my left ear.
"You can tell!" she bursts in response, before she can even stop herself from offending me. But no matter - the reality of my straggley, unlayered has been an obsession of mine for quite some time now, and I have come to accept the fact that for the past seven months I have had Very Bad Hair. In fact make that all my life.
For some reason, since childhood I have never had a decent, attractive hairstyle. I was brought up enduring a bob-and-fringe, of which my Mother would rarely bother taking me to the hairdressers even then; oh no, it was a kitchen-scissors job to maintain that treasure. Then gradually over the years my hair has progressed into one consistent hairstyle - straight, long, mud-brown hair with a center parting and no fringe. It actually resembles how hair would look if there was no civilisation and humans roamed hairdresser-less in the wild. For the past five years, all my hair has done is grow.
Apart from that one time when I attempted to do something slightly different with my hair in my ignorant, fourteen-year-old youth. With a sinking heart, I hear her ask that timeless question that people would never cease to interrogate me with: "Why's your hair a lighter colour at the bottom?"
"SUN IN!" I want to scream into her face, and indeed the faces of all accusing persons around me. "I USED SUN-IN WHEN I WAS FOURTEEN; BAD MISTAKE, MADE MY HAIR GO GINGER FOR A WHILE, NEVER REALLY LEFT ME."
However, the polite, I-attended-Milngavie-Primary-School facist dictator of my mind steps in, and answers for me. "I used Sun-In a while back, old boy, I rather regret the decision m'self! Ah well, that's youths for you! Now pass us that mug of crap over, will you dear, there's a good chap."
"We're done", the hairdresser announces, a relieved expression written across her face at the apparent release of this maniac from her presence. "What do you think?"
I regard my reflection for a while, then stand up with a manic grin. "Thank you very much" I say courteously, before paying. As I leave, I catch a glance of myself in the mirror, and see a person with the exact same haircut and style as the one who walked in. However, as I make my way out of the front door and into the busy street, I notice the staff and customers meet my eye and smile warmly - they, at least, seem to be able to discern a joyful difference in the three inches of split-ends that have been exterminated from my head. And at least I've managed to maintain the one hairstyle that I have fostered for years and feel comfortable with - for another year anyway.
"Shields" I whisper to the trendy lady before me, my hands desperatedly straggling through my own rat-tails in a pathetic attempt to tidy it up a bit. "Susie Shields".
The lady turns round and with one dazzling woosh of silky peroxide blond, she regards my hair like the hasn't-been-cut-for-a-year pile of crap that it is. With one lift of her perfectly plucked eyebrows, she scans down her list and beckons me to a chair.
Sitting in between a five-year old girl with a headful of golden locks coiled up into a beautiful crown, and an old lady with a striking haircut trendier than my own, I gaze glumly into the mirror to see my own reflection: a bare-faced, split-ended vision of horrors. I know I should go to the hairdressers more often, to avoid embarassing situations such as these - the look on every manicured person's face in the room informs me that my bedraggled, unstyled mop of hair is something to be ashamed of - yet somehow I never manage to bring myself to booking an appointement for the recommended every six weeks.
I am paying for this laziness now - after having my hair ruthlessly washed down with a hose in the back garden, I am ushered to another chair, where the true raping of my hair begins. Clips, scissors, and crocodiles jaws all blur around my darting eyes, latching onto my hair in a most undignified manner.
"What way do you wear your hair?" My hairdresser darts a question at me.
"Pardon?" I answer meekly, showing blatant confusion.
"Side? Middle? Inside out, shake it all about?" she barks.
I give a guffawing chuckle, that brings an anxious look to her flawless face about the mental state of her customer. After a few more questions that appear to me to be in a different langauge - "What do you want done to your hair? What do you mean 'more volume? You want volume with layers? What kind of layers? " and so on - she eventually gives up asking me anything to do with my forecoming hairstyle, and instead decides just to do whatever the hell she wants. It is clear that I have no respect for my own hair, anyway.
She does, however, inquire into the history of my hair. As everyone else I have encountered with in the past few months, she "casually" wonders how long it was since my last cut.
"A year" I reply sadly, watching her pretty jaw drop in amazement, convinced that her hand nearly slipped and almost chopped off my left ear.
"You can tell!" she bursts in response, before she can even stop herself from offending me. But no matter - the reality of my straggley, unlayered has been an obsession of mine for quite some time now, and I have come to accept the fact that for the past seven months I have had Very Bad Hair. In fact make that all my life.
For some reason, since childhood I have never had a decent, attractive hairstyle. I was brought up enduring a bob-and-fringe, of which my Mother would rarely bother taking me to the hairdressers even then; oh no, it was a kitchen-scissors job to maintain that treasure. Then gradually over the years my hair has progressed into one consistent hairstyle - straight, long, mud-brown hair with a center parting and no fringe. It actually resembles how hair would look if there was no civilisation and humans roamed hairdresser-less in the wild. For the past five years, all my hair has done is grow.
Apart from that one time when I attempted to do something slightly different with my hair in my ignorant, fourteen-year-old youth. With a sinking heart, I hear her ask that timeless question that people would never cease to interrogate me with: "Why's your hair a lighter colour at the bottom?"
"SUN IN!" I want to scream into her face, and indeed the faces of all accusing persons around me. "I USED SUN-IN WHEN I WAS FOURTEEN; BAD MISTAKE, MADE MY HAIR GO GINGER FOR A WHILE, NEVER REALLY LEFT ME."
However, the polite, I-attended-Milngavie-Primary-School facist dictator of my mind steps in, and answers for me. "I used Sun-In a while back, old boy, I rather regret the decision m'self! Ah well, that's youths for you! Now pass us that mug of crap over, will you dear, there's a good chap."
"We're done", the hairdresser announces, a relieved expression written across her face at the apparent release of this maniac from her presence. "What do you think?"
I regard my reflection for a while, then stand up with a manic grin. "Thank you very much" I say courteously, before paying. As I leave, I catch a glance of myself in the mirror, and see a person with the exact same haircut and style as the one who walked in. However, as I make my way out of the front door and into the busy street, I notice the staff and customers meet my eye and smile warmly - they, at least, seem to be able to discern a joyful difference in the three inches of split-ends that have been exterminated from my head. And at least I've managed to maintain the one hairstyle that I have fostered for years and feel comfortable with - for another year anyway.