A trip to the salon!

My wife got her hair cut the other day and it got me thinking about the mysterious world of the hair salon.  Most of us know very little about these places...well, except for the fact that they always have that weird smell in there, like someone's boiling a cat or something. 

When guys get their hair cut it's a very simple process.  We head out for the nearest strip mall and go to some place with a name like "Great Looks" or "First Rate Hair Care".  Once inside, we grab a sports magazine, sit in the barber's chair and say "Make my hair shorter than it is right now."  Then we talk sports while the barber takes a pair of $10 clippers and shears us.  The entire process takes approximately 4.3 minutes and costs $12.  

For you ladies, it's an entirely different ball game. 

The first thing you do is get out the phone book and begin calling "hair salons" to make an appointment.  Most of these are located in malls or fancy spas, and they do not accept walk-in customers.  The reason for this is poor math skills.  You see, it takes a very long time to get your hair fixed up in these places...usually two hours at a minimum.  However, when customers call to make appointments, they schedule them thirty minutes apart!  Anyone with remedial math abilities can begin to perceive the problem here...it takes two hours to get a customer out of the salon, but you have new customers come in every thirty minutes.  I'm not sure why they do this - it's like they all have short-term memory loss and think, "Yeah...it only takes about thirty minutes to do a dye job...tell her we can see her at 4:30."  If your wife says she has a hair appointment at 5pm, what this means to you as a husband and father is that you are going to be putting the kids to bed solo.  Her butt won't even touch the chair until 7pm.  Incidentally, this is why you always see ladies who go to the same hair salon over and over again becoming good friends - what else are they going to do for hours and hours while they wait but talk to one another?

It would be easy to say that they're just goofing off in there and that no haircut should take more than a few minutes, let alone hours, to complete. (in fact, if a barber spends more than 7 minutes working on a guy's hair, it's assumed he's trying to hit on you and you need to leave immediately)But if you've ever walked past one of these salons, you realize that there is a heck of a lot more going on in there.  For guys, it's a simple cut...maybe a handful of gel in some cases.  For the ladies, it's like they're trying to build a molecular separator in there.  You'll see all sorts of complex, mysterious behavior going on.  Some ladies will be seated underneath dome-shaped devices resembling old space helmets while all sorts of jets and steam and stuff rush out onto their hair.  Some ladies will have portions of their hair wrapped in aluminum foil while goopy junk is globbed all over their head.  Ladies with flat hair will use little miniature irons to make their hair curly, while other ladies with curly hair will use different irons to make theirs flat.  Sometimes they go in with long hair and come out with short hair, which makes sense...but then other times a girl with short hair goes in and 3 hours later she comes back out and her hair is long!  Hair that is brown becomes blond and vice-versa, and hair that is one solid color gets painted streaks put in it.  This is no haircut - it's a science and art project.   

Now, I've written many profound things during my time in this blog...but the next sentence I write is perhaps the most profound truth I have ever unleashed on my audience.

There is never a more dangerous time in a man's life than the first few moments of viewing your wife's hair after a salon visit. 

One wrong word or strange look can cause her to burst into tears.  She's been through a three hour gauntlet of alien technology and gelatinous goops, and the thought that she does not look dramatically different now than she did before she went in is more than she can bear.  Rest assured, she will be intently studying your reaction, searching for any signs that you might not like her new hairdo.  Every word you say will be parsed and analyzed, every pause and breath questioned.  This is a critical point in your relationship with her - so here are a few tips to making sure you don't end up taking a heel to the back of the head:

• You must learn to stifle and hide your immediate reaction to her hair.  Get into the habit of hiding your reaction so that you give yourself time to think about what you want to say to her...time to remind yourself that this haircut is as important as any issue you are currently facing in your life.  Shocking and/or grimacing looks are not recommended.
• Sometimes she will come home and her hair will look EXACTLY THE SAME to you.  This is not a trick - their hairstyles often contain minute differences that only someone who obsesses over them would notice.  Be prepared for this and be ready to make many comments about how it DOES NOT look exactly the same.  Tell her you couldn't recognize her without I.D.
• As you remember the above point that I just made, realize that saying her hair is "different" is not a good thing.  You must notice that it's different, but you must not let this be something you say directly.  "Wow, it sure looks different" translates to "What blind monkey butchered your hair?"
• She may tell you that she does not like her haircut and may try to get you to agree with her on this.  THIS IS A TRICK.  She really loves it - she's trying to make you think that since she doesn't like it, it's ok for you to be truthful and tell her that you really think it looks like she had her hair cut with a rusty spoon.  Well it's not ok - in fact, never, ever say the haircut sucks or...you...will...die.

Fortunately for me, my wife's haircut turned out great and she looks incredible.  I hope you guys have the same good fortune!

"You want me to do what to your tips?  Boy, we don't got none of that sissy-fied stuff goin' on up in here.  Your options are a hair cut, a shorter hair cut or one of them fancy flat-top jobs.  I got a old Windex bottle full of tap water that I'll spray your head with before I go to cuttin' it.  Then you pay me and get out, and don't steal none of my magazines either."