A pony "tale" of a different color

This is a picture of me in December of 2002. Its a picture of the me I've secretly been trying to get back to - physically, I mean. Pre-kids, pre-pregnancy, and only 6 months into my marriage. So I decided I'd get my hair cut. After all, I hadn't had a haircut since Nick was 4 weeks old... that's about 2 years now. My hair is the longest it's ever been. And don't I deserve some pampering? I'm going on vacation - I had images of a cute, skinny me with cute, sassy hair running around with my kids in the sun.

I had a hair appointment scheduled for today, and it was a total disaster. How bad? Do I have blue hair? A mohawk? Am I bald? No... actually... Actually my hair looks EXACTLY THE SAME.

That's right. I showed up on time for my 9am appointment and made a mistake RIGHT AWAY. I didn't confirm waht I was having done. I figured TAMMY, the woman who I was trusting my hair to, would know what she was doing. TAMMY plunged right into the color I had asked for. Now, I don't usually get my hair colored. I have a great natural color - almost black. But I've been noticing a few white hairs in there, and I thought I would splurge. TAMMY kept telling me my hair was SO DARK, like is was a problem I should have fixed earlier. Then she suggested a natural brown, a couple of shades lighter. I said fine.

While she pulled my hair out my the roots and applied a noxious smelling goop to my head she talked to me about her husbad, who lost her paycheck and who didn't want her to go back to work after they had kids and who, she told me, she was probably going to divorce once her kids were "old enough." She told me about her mother in law who is manipulative and cries and who compares her to her sister in law. The she left me sitting for an hour while she put foils on another customer.

All the other women there were getting foils. They were all wearing cute apris and tank tops,. They all had on lipstick and eyeliner. They were all trendy and cute. I had an hour to look right into a mirror without my hair framing my face and observe the yellowish tint to my skin, the moles and the freckles, and the slight mustash that made me look like a feminine Gomez Adams. I listened to the chatter, to the conversation, and all the girls were talking about their boyfriends, their husbands, their dates, and fights with co-workers... I have never been able to say the things they were saying. I have never been able to talk to complete stranger about my ex-boyfriends, even if she was giving me a medusa foil do.

Anyway, the rest of the appointment was just awful. TAMMY handed me the blow dryer to dry my hair myself. It turned out they didn't have me down for a cut, only a color. My hair looks exactly the same as it did before 90 minutes in awful smelling hair goop, only now parts of my scalp are brown. No trendy look for me. Not even a blow dry, I just smell like ammonia. This is what I get for trying to be like everybody else.

I was so upset I cried all the way home. I had scheduled this Saturday appointment weeks in advance, and I was really looking forward to a new cut. To short hair. I didn't expect not to get it. I was supposed to feel good about myself, to feel special, and instead I felt icky and dumpy and so out of it. I felt unimportant. I felt, quite frankly, that when I walked out of the salon all the lipstick girls would roll their eyes and wonder how I could be so incompetent.

I really do want a hair cut. But I don't want to go back to a salon like that ever again. Betsy - I'm going to do what you do and just cut my own hair, OK?