A HAIRiffic Experience!

Hair/Horror seems to go together for us around here! There are no words to express how much I miss my old hair friends in Texas. But, we get good hair stories here at least. The boys have been complaining about how they miss the hair cut place in Texas where we could walk in any time, at most wait 5 minutes, get in and out with no pain and a decent hair cut for 6 bucks. Sometimes you don't appreciate what ya have until it's gone. I was pretty happy when I found the hair school here, at least they are cheap. But the boys complain that the clippers pull your hair- especially Ben who is blessed with wool on his head- and always gets his ear clipped at least once. Poor fella.
Being the nice mom that I am I decided to try a new place. Okay, well the nice mom thing wasn't really true, actually a friend gave me certificates for 12 free hair cuts at a Salon in town. They purchased them at an auction and weren't going to be able to use them. (THANKS Collette!) So, being the cheap Mom that I am I decided to give the Salon a shot and scheduled a hair cut for Ben and Emma. Last month I tried to take Emma in and get her hair trimmed when Ben got his hair cut at the hair school and for some reason she got really scared when it was a man who was going to cut her hair. She cried and cried- which she has NEVER done when getting her hair cut. I couldn't calm her down so I told her that she didn't have to get it cut and we would come back another day.

Well, this month I was prepared. I prepped Emma for a couple days about getting her hair cut at this new place that was really nice and there wouldn't be a guy cutting her hair or anything weird. She seemed okay with it all and was doing fine. About the time that we pulled into the parking lot she started getting nervous. No biggie, I just assured her once again and told her that there was nothing to worry about that a guy wouldn't cut her hair and there wouldn't be anything weird (my exact words!). She said, "I don't know Mommy, I think I would like to just have you cut my hair at home." Ben has been saying the same thing for the last couple of months, that should be a clue of how much my kids hate getting their hair cut here when they ask ME to cut it!! Please... you would have to be desperate for that kind of desire. I admit, my hair cuts are horrible. I reassured Emma once more that everything will be fine and she really needs a better haircut than what Mommy can do.

We walk into the Salon are greeted, all is looking well and seems great. Ben is called to a station and Emma looks up at me and I can tell she is nervous. I bend down to talk to her and reassure her that everything is just fine. Then it happens...behind me I hear a pleasant sounding female voice say, "I am ready for Emma". I turn and look up and experience the same horror that Emma surely had to be feeling but I have to be a little more mature about it, I suppose. In front of me stood someone that I have learned to accept as part of the freakish little town that we live in. Mind you, we live in the middle of wheat fields, quite literally. Beyond our little patch of country life we are greeted with the University of Idaho which brings in what we call "diversity". Well this diversity was dressed in black, pierced everywhere that is humanly possible and sported a Mohawk died black with bright red accents of course. Quite possibly the most "diverse" looking person I have ever seen. I still can't be sure whether the female voice came from a female body. I think the final vote was male-- at least at birth? Not that the gender matters, the general appearance was quite shocking.

Emma did exactly what I was thinking. Panic. Her eyes got big, tears started to fall and she clung to me weeping, "Please, I don't want my hair cut, please no, please no!" I must admit that for one horrible mom moment (like half a second is all) I thought, "but the hair cut is free". Then I snapped back into reality and knew no matter how cheap it was I had to get her out of this hair cut, and try to do it tactfully. Well the tact part was difficult since my poor traumatized child was screaming at the top of her capacity that she did not want her hair cut and please take her home, so I simply looked at him/her and shrugged my shoulders. The person looked at me and said, "Maybe we should find someone a little less scary to cut her hair". Frankenstein could be less scary I think.

A quite normal looking lady steps in at this point and tries to console Emma. She offers to cut Emma's hair. She shows Emma a picture of her little girl in an effort to calm her. I was now comforted that a perfectly normal looking person was available to cut her hair and immediately shot back into my cheap mode and had to find a way to actually take advantage of the "free" haircut. It was a painful process filled with more tears. Twenty five minutes later we walked out of the salon with an emotionally damaged child with a haircut, and that was just Ben! Haha...Just kidding. Ben did fine. Emma managed to make it through her haircut sobbing. I had to take her somewhere special afterwards to reward her for her bravery. The reward cost me, plus the therapy won't be cheap either! =) Ben told me he didn't really like his haircut and I told him I could fix it when we got home. He just rolled his eyes and said, "See, I told you to cut it in the first place".
When will I learn? It doesn't matter if they get a bad haircut from me or someone else... at least when I give the bad haircut it really is free!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I still have several free hair cuts. Any takers?

*Note: The above pic is not really our mohawk person- ours was much worse!