Hair today, gone tomorrow

People who go into the hairdressers and announce to them exactly what should be done to their hair amuse and impress me. I don't usually dare tell the experts how to go about doing their thing. I mean, who waltzes into the cockpit and says, "Hey, pilot, dude, I really think you should be pushing that big red button over there," or calls up the exterminator and says, "I have this termite problem... but could you use a fumigant that doubles as a nasal spray? I have this annoying post-nasal drip..."? I find I get much better hair results when I throw myself on the mercy of the court and say, "I was thinking something medium-length, but really, do what you think will look good on me. You know, within normal range."

That was my plan today. Now, I am pretty fluent in German, but the necessity of navigating new or unusual situations in German still makes me a little bit nervous. I mean, what if I accidentally say "Could you use the quarter-inch attachment instead of shaving me totally bald?" or "I'd like a pink racing stripe right down the middle, if you please"?

But my hairdresser of choice put me right at ease, in her German way. I said, "Could you take a walk-in?" and she looked at me, alarm painted all over her face, and said, "Yes, when it's an emergency like this, we always make time. What was it, a kitchen fire or the electrical outlet?"

Hmm... well, maybe she wasn't quite so vivid in her description of my urgent hair maladies. But she did say, as soon as I sat down, "now this certainly won't do." (In my defense, I had purposely not blow-dried my hair or put any sort of miracle sticky agent into it, so that she could set to work relatively unhindered.) With the wisdom of her years, she immediately perceived the problems that have annoyed me (to the extent that I actually think about my hair, which is admittedly not all that much) for my whole hair-having lifespan so far (that is, since I was 3-1/2): my hair is thin and flat, falls directly from the crown down into my eyes, and has approximately 17 cowlicks. (It is, however, soft and acquires pretty natural highlights in the summer.) She sized me up faster than you can say "shame the Beatles bowl-cut look is out," sat me down in the chair and comforted me in her motherly way: "Don't worry, honey, we'll fix this."

And then she proceeded to make alarming piles of fluff gather at my feet. I am so nearsighted that the only impression I ever have of hair stylists at work is a downy blond snowfall obscuring my peripheral vision. But even blind I could see that she was working some serious hair removal up there. Yikes. Then she pulled out some spray sticky stuff, smelling of roses, and then some gel sticky stuff, and then some more spray sticky stuff: Meanwhile she held a very large blow-drier to my head and drew two menacing-looking round brushes from a holster at her hip. And when she was done, I replaced my eyes and saw looking back at me...some trendy European chick. A trendy, 10-years-older-than-me European chick, wearing my glasses.

Tomorrow Ms. Trendy-Pants will be gone, replaced by Ms. How-Did-She-Do-That-One-Thing-With-the-Round-Brush, Geeky-Again Jess. But it was fun to be the other girl today.