Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Hair (07/04/19)
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TITLE: Hair Today, Gone Forever | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mariane Holbrook
07/09/19 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Some frown, pout, and sulk with a bad attitude,
Some vacuum the house or they clean mini-blinds,
Some yell at their kids 'til they're out of their minds.
But when I am down and I feel really punk
And fall for the notion I'm in a deep funk,
I call up my stylist and set up a date;
A haircut and perm always make me feel great.
So, one summer morning I looked in the bathroom mirror and asked, "Who is that?"
I felt terrible but I looked even worse. If anyone needed a new look, it was I, so I headed for my appointment at the salon only to discover my regular stylist was out sick and her replacement looked like a high school girl with little or no experience. I was right.
She asked if I wanted a short or long cut, and did I want a tight perm or loose curls. We settled on a medium cut, a loose perm, and a light brown color. (I should have written it down and had her sign it in front of a Notary.) The entire time I was there, she had her phone cradled to her ear, crying and begging her boyfriend not to break up with her.
My back was facing the mirror so I had no idea what she was doing. But I prayed she wouldn't take her anger and heartbreak out on me.
Finally, after two hours, she was finished with me and from the sound of things, her boyfriend was finished with her. I looked in the mirror while she swept up a bushel basketful of my hair from the linoleum. She was crying and didn't see the expression of horror on my face. She had given me a very short, very tight, frizzy perm and colored it jet black. It was later recorded as the worst haircut and perm in the history of hair in the "Guinness Book of World Records," page 149.
I couldn't add to her brokenness by screaming, so I gently thanked her, wished her well, left my usual tip, and saved my screaming until I was safely inside my car. Then I let it all out.
I drove home slowly, desperately hoping my family had suddenly left for an unplanned two month's vacation on the Isle of Crete.
Once I reached home, my miserable, little white Maltese for whom I'd paid $600, took one look at me, then whimpered and hid under an end table for the rest of the day.
John, my normally sensitive, compassionate husband, burst out laughing and chortled, "Let's see. We could paint out the pupils of your eyes and call you, "Little Orphan Annie" or put you in some baggy pants and call you "Chico Marks."
I flung myself across my bed and cried buckets. The phone rang and my friend, Jackie, said she was coming over to see my new hairdo. I told her if she set one foot on my property, she must have a death wish.
Even worse, we had made plans to meet my sister's family for an outdoor concert in Raleigh, something we had looked forward to for months. When we arrived and even before the first John Philip Sousa march was played, the heavens opened up to pour buckets of rain over all 13,000 people sitting on blankets in the park. The frizzies on my hair sprouted up to add more frizzies. Immediately, the concert was canceled and families hurried out together holding their blanket high, walking like centipedes past us.
I was sure I saw one mother point to me and yell at her daughter, "Look at that woman's hair! See what happens when you don't eat your veggies?"
Back home, I headed for a 24-hour pharmacy and bought the best hair straightener and damaged hair restorer they had. I checked the labels' ingredients carefully, discarding those made with bat urine, oil from roosters' hangy-down throat things, and snail excrement. The hair restorer I finally chose was made of cows' placenta but I figured it was the least disgusting of all the others.
Around 2 a.m. I used the entire 18-ounce bottle of damaged hair restorer rather than the 4 ounces recommended in the directions. Soon, John stuck his head in the bathroom door, made a face and said, "There's a distinctive bovine smell in this house!"
Something told me I shouldn't go near a pasture for a while.
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I loved your husband's remarks about "Chico Marks" that was the best line of all!
Well done, thanks for sharing.
Blessings~