Overheard at the Salon

My hair stylist is not chatty.  When I first started going to her, I felt like I should try to make chit chat b/c that's what one does at the salon.  But she'd answer any direct questions and let it drop.  Just like I would.  Bless her.  So I can sit in silence and read or think or...eavesdrop.

The stylist next to us was chatting with her client:

"I remember the first time I shampooed a comb-over.  I wasn't really paying attention when he came in and I just started to shampoo him.  And it was like all his hair just washed off!  There was just this long swirl of hair in the sink!  I nearly screamed, I didn't know what happened for like a second. Like, I'd washed his hair off!"

She went on, describing how she'd had to hold this long, thin hank of hair to shampoo it.  She mimed the odd little washing-a-sock-in-the-sink motion it too.  But I was just so taken with that moment of My God What Have I Done? horror as the hair washed off his scalp.

My dad sported that comb-over far longer than he should have.  He'd stick a base ball cap on when outside and sometimes the combed-over part would go straight down, reaching his shoulder, like he had considered becoming a hippie, but couldn't quite commit.  How does a barber keep from saying, "Look.  Homer. You aren't fooling anyone.  Let me trim it off.  Geez."  Eventually he did, bless him.  There was a girl in one of my grad school classes that had the I Do Not Care To Attract Men super short fauxhawky haircut and a long, braided rattail.  How I longed to creep up behind her and snip it off.  It would have been one of those random acts of kindness she no doubt supported on her bumper.