A Cut Above

For some reason, I love changing my hair's cut or color when I feel like my life is also changing. Sometimes this leads to my having the same haircut for months on end, and other times this means that my hair color changes weekly. (It's highly likely that in five or ten years some extremely brilliant psychologist will name this behavior as a disorder and name it after himself, but remember: I said it first.)

Anyway, my multiple hair-sonality syndrome compelled me to cut my hair today. Not too much--just needed to add a few layers in honor of being 2 1/2 weeks away from the end of my 2nd year of dental school (and thus the halfway point of my post-graduate education). I decided to go to a different location than I usually go to, but still the same chain. Bad decision.

I walked in and was greeted by nothing. Literally nothing. One woman looked up from the head of hair she was cutting and then immediately looked back down. The woman at the front desk couldn't manage a greeting because she had just taken a lion-sized bite of a sandwich. We played an awkward version of Pictionary/Gestures as she motioned for me to sign in. Against my better judgement, I decided to stay.

After the front desk lady swallowed her massive chunk of food, she led me over to the chair. As she leaned over the sink to turn on the water and begin washing my hair, she burped, then said, "Sorry, but you'll probably hear lots more of those today. I just had a 5 minute lunch." I could hardly contain my excitement.

When we headed back to the chair to get my hair cut, she asked me how I wanted it done. I told her that I would like some long layers and tapering around my face. She looked at me incredulously and said with disdain, "You want it tapered in the front or face-framed? Because tapered (she said 'tapered' with the same disapproval as some people say 'rat' or 'snake') means shaved all the way up to the skin."

I explained to her that no, I did not want my hair shaved to the skin in the front right by my face and apologized for my word choice. She said, "It's a good thing for you that I've been doing this for 30 years. Some younger employee might have just done it." I hope for everyone's sake that this is not the method being taught in beauty schools across the country.

Believe it or not, she actually did give me a cute hair cut after all that fumbling. But I think from now on I might go back to the old location.

In other news, I read a story online today about a man who went to England to have surgery because it was much cheaper than having the surgery done in the US. I have many opinions about the phenomenon of "medical shopping" that is becoming more and more common, but I'll just say this one: You get what you pay for. (Sorry, Mom, I don't know how to say that sentence without ending it in a preposition. You get for what you pay? For what you pay you get? Pay for get what you you?)

I always read the comments that people write below the stories because I find them very amusing. Usually the people who post on those message boards are borderline crazy, and I might be crazy for enjoying their prose, but I am who I am, and I love reading those comments. Among the spam messages, generally racist comments, and snarky political remarks, a person had written something like, "I hear you can get surgerys [sic] really cheap in Cuba."

The next person who posted replied, "Yeah, I've heard that, too. That's why tons of people are jumping into tires and swimming across the waters to get to Cuba to access great medical care. Oh, wait..."