I cheated

We've had a relationship of sorts for about 9 years now. I'll always remember how I felt when I saw him for the first time-- so excited and terrified and intimidated all at the same time. He looked exactly as I expected, and I had to instantly trust in him completely. While he has mildly disappointed me a few times, in the long run he has been just perfect. But now, I have cheated and I am paying the price.

I cheated on my hairdresser. Oh please don't preach to me... I was of sound mind, and I had very understandable reasons. When I first started to go to my guy, it was just for eyebrow waxes, and he was at a small local salon in the college town where I worked. He was more expensive than a haircut at a chain, but from the beginning, it was obvious that this guy knew what he was doing. He looked and acted the part perfectly-- before there were any beauty salon reality shows, he defined what the contestants should be. Oh yes, he's loud and brash and as gay as they come, and he's crazy-thin and has sported some fantastic dos over the years-- mohawks, twists, you name it. But... he decided that the little college town place was not a fit for him, and made some moves (out to the West Coast, even, but came back, thankfully!), finally settling in a high-end mall salon in a neighboring county. His prices have skyrocketed, and it's a bit of a hike to get out to see him. Even though I was averaging only about 2 haircuts a year in the last few years, I still couldn't fit those bills into the budget. So, after my last really short (awesome!) haircut with him last year, I figured I'd have to find an alternative once it grew out.

And boy did it ever grow out. I've been HATING the way it looked, and I've been avoiding mirrors even more than usual lately. So. Yesterday I decided that it was time to bite the bullet, and since lovely hubby had taken the day off to be with the little ones while I accompanied JAM's class on a field trip, it seemed to be the perfect time to lighten the hair load. After the field trip, I headed over to the shopping center down the road and walked in blindly to one of those chain places, let's just call it Bare Nuttery for the sake of this post, and I began the saga with the words, "I'd like a haircut, please." When asked if I wanted to request anyone, I said somewhat pitifully, "No thank you, I don't know anybody." I was assigned the next person on the sticky note list on the desk. I tried not to think bad thoughts that her name just happened to be the name of a country whose leaders quite possibly would like to blow the US of the globe. Whatever.

I can assume all the blame, really, since I never seem to be able to articulate myself very well when it comes to haircuts. But, the thing is, for the last 9 years, I've been able to say just a few words and my dear Marcus would understand, or if he didn't, he would convince me that he had the perfect idea in mind, and I'd feel confident sitting back and letting him cut away. I didn't have so much confidence yesterday... but she was nice and polite and seemed to pay very close attention to what she was doing. No matter that after she finished cutting and drying my hair, you know when you're basically at the finish line, she picked the scissors back up and went back to cutting A LOT more... she explained at the end, kind of offhandedly, "This looks better-- it was all uneven before so I cut some more." Oh. When you finished the haircut it was all uneven, so you went back to it. I guess that's commendable, right?

Well, it's not the end of the world, but I realized today that while it's great to spend 1/3 of what I used to on a haircut, I think I'm left with only 1/3 of the satisfaction in the end. With this economy, I figure that I'm not the only one walking around with a mediocre haircut.

(And yes, I'm breaking the bloggy golden rule, and will not be providing any pictures... there's a reason that my profile pic never changes... I am not a fan of photos of myself. Ever.)

Grateful that I don't have a mullet,