The 2 Hour Neck

This was the most unbelievable hairdresser experience I ever had. I went to a new place, the other hairdresser was booked for a month and I wanted my hair cut – NOW. So I picked up the phone and went to the next salon close by which seemed that they possibly could do a decent job. Arranged for a simple Cut and Style for $32. Got a very nice girl cutting my hair. First, she gave me a neck and shoulder massage. Yes, a neck and shoulder MASSAGE at the HAIRDRESSER – never heard of that before, but that is part of what they do. Nice touch, even though when I go to the hair dresser I want to be out of there as fast as possible, so it rather tickled my impatience than relaxedness.

Then we went over into the other room, sat down, and she began cutting. And cutting and cutting. And cutting. She didn’t stop cutting! And all the time she was cutting in my neck and I could not understand what the heck she was doing there! Come to the front, to my face and cut a bit there, please, please, please, I kept thinking, but nope, all concentrated she continued cutting at the back. I’m not kidding, she cut for OVER an hour just on my neck! Now, I do know that I have a lot of hair, but not THAT much!

I think what happened was the same what happened to the one girl in the TV show America’s Next Top Model’s – somebody told the one girl she shows too much of her ballet background and next thing is she is so obsessed with not having it show through, that everything goes down the drain. Here I told the girl that I don’t like when I end up with a big triangle on the back of my neck and don’t want to shave there just because by nature I have a low hairline there. Next thing is, she is obsessed with that hairline and wants to please me and begins cutting and only during this procedure she realizes how much hair I have and gets overwhelmed and wants to do it really good and now she’s trying to do something that is plain impossible with my hair: perfection.

They had planned my hair cut to be a one hour thing. I was there full 2 hours. Of which the cutting part took at least 90 minutes. First I felt really sorry for the girl. Then I felt sorry for myself. Because the more she got tied up in that stupid neck, the less she paid attention to the rest of my head. She completely missed that I had wanted the hair layered. Also, the profile we had agreed upon before the cutting begun, she completely lost out of sight and then forgot about it. But I just couldn’t say something. Couldn’t do that to this girl. Not after having her trying so hard for 2 hours. I gave her more than a 20% tip, she put so much time and effort into it. If I’ll ever get the curage to go there again, I’ll have to indeptly brief her how to cut my hair and forbid her to put in more than 40 minutes. Right now though I d’on’t think I’ll go there ever again, I really don’t have THAT much courage.