Why I Hate Getting My Hair Cut

There are a lot of things I don't particularly care for that 99 percent of other girls in America absolutely love.  One of them is Beyonce, another is The Bachelorette, and another is pedicures.  But above all, I vehemently hate getting my hair cut.

I haven't had a very successful - or even notable - past with hair salons.  From elementary school through tenth grade I was a horse girl, which means I wore stirrup leggings and shirts with dancing horses, filled entire sketchbooks with horses in different poses, and most relevantly wore my hair so that it actually resembled a horse's: long and stringy.

Like this, but less cute and more socially awkward.

Later in high school I went to a few places in the mall before dances and to keep my bangs looking punk rock, but it was nothing serious.  I didn't develop a relationship with a hairdresser that most women seem to treasure.  But hey, I was eighteen and didn't want to carry any serious relationships with me into college.  Who needs a boyfriend hairdresser when you're just going to move away and meet new people?

For the next four years, my entire budget was spent on crop tops, boxed wine and bad magazines (you know, school supplies).  Getting my hair cut was not in my budget and was definitely not on my list of priorities.  It would happen spontaneously when I would ask my roommates to just go at it with a pair of scissors we kept in the knife drawer.  While my budget expenditures have not changed, as part of an effort to become a mature human I have started getting regular, professional trims.

The first one I got was okay.  I went to Great Clips, where I was referred to by my father.  My dad has thin hair like me, and also like me, does not give a flying fuck about what it looks like.  (My mother is one of the aforementioned ladies who has a strong working relationship with her hairdresser Vivian, makes appointments years in advance, and probably spends about three times the amount on her hair than I make in a week.  I ignored her referral.)  Anyway, Great Clips was a Great Experience; I liked it because I got to gossip and girl talk with the hairdresser, Michelle, without the pressure of having to maintain a friendship for years later, another thing I dislike that most girls love.  Even though it had been four years since I had a haircut and I made up a lie about how I had been living in Europe and didn't want to get my hair cut, Michelle didn't judge me because she knows that "the metric system can be confusing when you get your hair cut."  Yeah, whatever, and here's a $20 tip.

Unfortunately, I have moved away from Great Clips and this time I had to find a new "parlor," as it were.  I went into a few places, asked if they took walk-ins, and if I didn't like the look of the place I pretended to get an emergency call that forced me to leave.  Eventually I found myself at the Hair Cuttery, which is an okay place except none of the employees spoke English.  Definitely worse than having to use the metric system in Europe.

I already get my hair cut at the Cuttin' Corral.

Here are the main reasons I hate getting my hair cut:

1. How many nasty heads have been in that sink today?
2. I have a giant mole on the back of my neck, and when people comb over it, that's not a good time.  
3. They try to get you to buy so much stupid crap, like your weight in hair product or a $6 blow-dry.  Like maybe I would if it wasn't pouring rain outside and also if I couldn't dry my own damn hair for free.
4. You have to stare at yourself in the mirror for a minimum of 20 minutes.  While I do that same thing every hour on the hour, there are reasons this is not enjoyable at a salon, like that your hair is middle-parted and that you resemble Friar John with that cape that goes up to your chin.

By the time trauma was over, I looked like I had a mullet, I had bangs I didn't remember asking for, and just wanted to get out of there.  While I will probably wear a ponytail for the next six weeks, at least I'm not him: