When I go to the hairdressers I have to brace myself for hours of inane conversation (mine), with a head wrapped in foil and up to its neck in plastic and a face staring back at me that ain't what it used to be. Hours it takes from casually mixing the colour to finally picking up the hairdryer.
If my hairdresser hadn't been doing my hair for twenty years and if she didn't know how to work magic on these faded locks, I'd never go there ever again... never, ever.
We've had our differences over the years, my hairdresser and I, like the time I tried to convince her to use natural hair dyes and products and you'd think I'd given her arsenic to drink. She tried the dye but simply would not countenance the shampoos and conditioners. I did visit another hairdresser but soon returned with my tail between my legs, defeated by the enemy's lack of expertise. In the end, worn and vanquished, I resigned to the fact that every six weeks I'd spend a bleak three hours coated in carcinogenic chemicals whilst staring at my own mortality.
Nothing has changed at my hairdressers in the past twenty years, except the premises and the staff. Wouldn't you think, in the 21st C they'd come up with a gadget that automatically does hair.
For a while the place was staffed with sassy little red lipped, seamless skinned whippets, pretending to sweep up the floor hair or lounging in the gossip room where they made utterly undrinkable coffee. (How hard is it to make coffee I ask?)
But now it is suddenly more bearable with just my old hairdresser and me and a few clients chatting quietly. Day time TV still pervades so I take out my frustration on a few cross words in the crossword. (pun)
Where did the young whippets go I hear you ask? Afraid it was all my fault. I was having a discussion about drugs and tattoos, as one does, and was explaining in great detail why I detest them both when to my surprise they all said in unison 'We have tattoos!'.
I was embarrassed for putting my foot in it but before I had the chance to rectify my gaff they all said '...and we all take party drugs!'
Well that certainly stopped me in my trackies! 'Everyone does.' said the whippet pack leader casually. 'They're cheap and fun and parties are boring without them.' Okkayyy....' I said.
Pretty sure all the clients were shocked into silence and I sat there for a moment worrying about a generation of casual drug users who appear to have no sense of where their boundaries should lie. They appeared to have no shame! (Though I must admit, when I was young I certainly guzzled my fair share at parties but I was never one for drugs and the only drug I ever came across was a bit of grass or whatever they call it now.)
There followed not an embarrassed silence but rather a happy exchange of drugged out anecdotes. The only way to spend a weekend (and probably some week nights too, one would assume.) is to get high.
I was perturbed and a little sad. All that glorious youth, health, energy and sassy whippetness but not a brain between them nor any fun to be had without drugs. I do feel very relieved that both my children swear they don't take drugs though I'm sure they do have the odd tipple or two. There is a God!
Anyway, I digress. Six weeks later, having braced myself yet again for said unpleasantness, I was surprised to find my hairdresser there on her own, with only one polite little cherub who was ACTUALLY sweeping the floor hair. 'Having a quiet day?' I asked but to my surprise hairdresser told me that she had down sized her business and would be working alone from now on.
On further discussion she finally told me that after the day when, in front of her clients, all whippets admitted to regularly taking drugs, she had decided to work on her own and asked them all to leave. 'A line had been crossed' she said and they all got the sack!
Fair enough too. And the moral to that story is: If you're stupid enough to take drugs, never admit it openly at your place of work or to clients or customers....unless you're in rehab!
Go hairdresser!
