I Let Nixon Do My Hair

Like most mothers, my mom had a couple of supremely annoying stock lines. Ones like, "Because I said so," and "If you keep scrunching that face up it's going to stay that way," etc. The one that's creeping up my consciousness ladder today like an old choke weed is "A woman's hair is her crown of glory!" Ugh, gawd. Not in front of my friends!

Translation, for those lightly baffled, is: If your hair doesn't look good, forget about the rest of your day. It's going to suck. Please see future post, "Princess Diana's Hair Was Never Quite Good Enough."

Funny, this coming from a woman who could have singlehandedly destroyed the ozone layer above North America with the way she wrangled her tresses through the spray of a full can of AquaNet. She was a high-teasing, redheaded, beehive hairdo champion of North Suburban Minneapolis, she was. And for her era, she was as good as it gets in the excellent hair day department.

Still, puberty had a way of making much of what she said creepy and I guess today I'm still hearing her "glory" saying through pubic ears. It could be because I got up this morning and looked at my hair while brushing my teeth. I tend to avoid this early sneak peek, not because I never like what I see, but because I can't predict which days I won't. So I usually put it off until after caffeination. This morning my hair just sucked, plain and simple. I totally hate the last haircut I got, it's growing out wonky, it's too short to cut any differently just yet and I'm simply having to live with it for awhile. But today, as it just lays there dead to the world, up from the depths comes that inane mommy quip to frost my already paltry cake.

Ack! Of course I have to do something - and I have to do it today. Whenever I find the time is ripe for hair modification it must happen on the same day the thought occurs. Everybody's got their thang, all right?

I phone my usual colorist. It's the holidays so naturally she's booked out for three entire days. Breathe. So, after a small amount of panic, I say to the receptionist, "Okay, go ahead and book me with whoever has an opening today."

What?! What am I thinking?! Who in blazes do you think is going to have an impromptu opening in their schedule this close to the holiday?

I get to the salon, check my coat, and am informed by the receptionist that I am to be the lucky "guest" of one of the newest members of their design team. Ah! Greaaaaat...and who would that be? "Nixon," that's who. A brand-spanking new hair school graduate with the same name as one of our nation's most embarrassing Yankee leaders to date. How could this possibly bode well?

I'm not going to describe Nixon. The photo to your left is not her (although the first thing she said to me upon shaking my hand was, "I am not a crook"). She is actually a lovely young woman with a lavender crewcut...who has no idea how or where to slather and fold the foils as necessary for the lightening of hair (she started in the back!). And let me just wrap this up by saying that, because I let Nixon do my hair, 85 dollars later it looks exactly the same as it did in the mirror this morning. There shall be no glory in my crown today.

However, let it be said that because I do know quite a bit about haircolor processing itself, and after watching Nixon "do" my hair, today I am extremely grateful to have any hair left at all.