Here comes the new haircut, same as the old haircut

So, a few years ago, as I mentioned in my last entry, I was given a mullet by the Hair Salon Down the Road – or the Little Shop of Hairdressing Horrors, as I affectionately liked to think of it at the time. It was the result of one of those last-minute emergency haircuts that no-one should ever have to subject themselves to: I had some big event or other to go to, and I woke up the morning before it with the certain knowledge that if I didn’t get a haircut THAT VERY DAY, why I would take the nail scissors from the bathroom and I would cut it myself, oh yes I would.

My regular stylist wasn’t available at such short notice, so, with a nonchalance born of the knowledge that I had never in my life had a haircut that wasn’t exactly the same as its predecessor (and this through no lack of trying on my part) I breezed into the Little Shop of Hairdressing Horrors and asked them give me a trim. No, actually, that’s not quite right: I asked them to give me a trim, a fringe and to “just shape it a little round the sides”. Now, to this day, I have no idea what it was that caused the stylist to interpret my “shape it a little round the sides” as “I want it all business in the front, party at the back, my good woman!”. But she gave me a mullet.

Being socially inept, I could only sit and watch in horror as great chunks of my hair fell to the salon floor. “Why, it looks… it looks like she’s giving me a MULLET!” I thought, amazed. And what did I say about this?

“…”

“It’ll probably look better when it’s finished,” I told myself, cleverly ignoring the fact that it could only look better if the GREAT CHUNKS OF HAIR FLEW OFF THE FLOOR AND REATTACHED THEMSELVES TO MY HEAD. And they did not. No, they did not.

It was only at the end of the cut, when my hair had been blow-dried and the stylist was showing me the back of my head (PARTY!) in a mirror that she remembered that I’d also asked for a fringe. “Oh no, NO!” said I, suddenly finding my voice. “No need to cut a fringe! This is just fine!” Just. Fine. That’s what I told her. And I paid. I smiled. I left the store and locked myself in the car, where I peered into the rear-view mirror, hoping that… I dunno, that they’d maybe had magic mirrors in the salon, that made all haircuts look like mullets, and that my true, totally non-mullet haircut would be revealed only  through  use of a different glass.

It was still a mullet.

I drove home and rushed to the mirror at the top of the stairs: still a mullet.
The mirror in the spare bedroom? A mullet.
The mirror in the bathroom? Mullet.
The mirror in the bedroom? Oh my good God, it was a MULLET! She had given me a MULLET!

“It’s not a mullet,” said Terry, helpfully. “Well, not much…”

Weeping, I climbed into the shower, shampooed my hair and then blow-dried it, clinging desperately to the vague hope that maybe, just maybe it was the way she’d dried it, and that the hair at the front of my head was just… just hiding, maybe, waiting to come out. But no:

IT WAS A FREAKING MULLET.

I am not ashamed to say that I cried. And howled. And tried everything in my meager arsenal of “making my hair look better” knowledge to hide that damn haircut. Nothing worked. (What I did not try: going back to the salon and asking them to fix it. Partly because only a wig would have fixed it, but mostly because… well, can we say “coward”?) And so it was that I went to my Big Important Event with the worst haircut I ever did see. And I swore that never, ever again would I book an appointment at the Little Shop of Hairdressing Horrors.

So, anyway, the whole point of this entry is to tell you that today? I got my hair cut at the Little Shop of Hairdressing Horrors. Oh yes. See, the thing is: it’s handy. And I’m busy, you know? I don’t really have time to drive to no fancy-pants far-away salon. And to be honest, despite the evidence presented in this entry (and also this one), hair isn’t really my “thing”. Shoes are my “thing”. Makeup is my “thing”. But hair? Not so much, really. As evidence, I:

1. Do not own a single styling product
2. DO own a few hair “accessories”, but…
3. Do not ever use them because, hey, washing it once a day seems to work just fine.

As I mentioned before, my hair has looked more or less the same for most of my life, and if I’m ever going out somewhere special and someone asks me what I’m going to “do” with my hair, I’m most likely to give them a blank look and answer that, well, it’s HAIR: I’m planning on having it hanging from my head. Y’know?

So, to cut a long story short, I had convinced myself that it would be FINE, that it was only hair, and that nothing bad would happen. And you know what?

Nothing did. GOD, talk about an anti-climax, eh? No, the LSOHH was absolutely fine. My hair is all still present and correct. I did not cry. I did not have to be persuaded not to wear a bag over my head for the next few weeks.

“It looks exactly the same as it did yesterday,” said Terry. Well, yeah. That too.

BEFORE:

I am rubbish at doing the whole “I am taking pictures of myself in the mirror” thing, so for my “after” shots, I proudly present…

BLURRY WEBCAM PICS! Now with added Rubinman!

 

   

So, you see folks, it is possible to get a hair cut, and still look exactly the same as you did before. But at least it’s not a mullet.

Oh, and the webcam whence came the blurry pics o’ the day? Came to me courtsy of Shiny Media, who want me to use it so that I – or rather, my disembodied head – can take part in their editorial meetings, in London. Given that I am severely phone phobic as it is, the thought of having to talk on the phone to multiple people while my stupid head floats above the room like the Dark Mark is freaking me out just a little. Hey, at least I got me a new haircut, though!