~ I can explain ~

For most of my life I kept my hair long.  Not because I’m vain.  Not because they were gloriously shiny, beautiful tresses.  Not because I am cool and know how to style hair.

But because I’m lazy.

And careful with my money (read: cheap).

The beauty of long hair is that it requires no drying, no curling, no nothing.  Just a brush, a hair band, and you’re ready to go.  Sure, you would need to keep your ends and bangs trimmed.   At least, most people would.

Not me.

“Bah!” I would say, “I can do it myself”.   How hard could it be?  It’s not like the ‘bang-police’ will come looking to see if my lines were straight.  So that’s been my Modus Operandi my whole life and it worked just fine…

Until….

I got my hair cut earlier this year.  Cut short.  Jim Morrison short.  It’s cute as all get out. Purposefully unruly, it’s blissfully easy to take care of.  I wash it, shake it like a dog, put a little anti-frizz product in it (because it smells fruity and I’d rather smell like a grapefruit than the greasy Scottish-Italian housewife that I am) and I’m good to go.

But, it requires more frequent trims than my long hair did.  Like, every month or so.  Especially the bangs.  But you know me (lazy, cheap)…..I waited more than two months before I went in.  And even then it was only because I absolutely HAD to.

You see, my bangs were driving me nuts.  NUTS.  They had grown so long that they were constantly in my eyes and I had to keep doing the snotty teenager ‘head flick’ thing.  I felt like an old, fat, female Justin Bieber.  Ever heard the phrase “seeing the world through rose-colored glasses”?  I was seeing it through brown greasy hair.  It was time for action.

So, there I am in the bathroom looking in the mirror, and do the ol, “Bah! I can do this.”  But I didn’t have any scissors in the bathroom.  Well, not normal scissors.  I did have those little tiny curved fingernail scissors.  You know those scissors that come with any fingernail cutting kit?  The scissors that aren’t good for anything? Yeah, those scissors.

Well I found something they could do.   They could trim bangs.

And I did just that.  I trimmed my bangs with fingernail scissors.  CURVED  fingernail scissors.  It was not easy, I’ll admit.  The curvature of the blades made a straight cut impossible.  The tiny-ness of the blades made it impossible to line it up with previous cuts.  But I did what I do every day of my life in every aspect of my life….

I fudged it.

And you know what, friends?  My bangs looked like someone took a pair of fingernail scissors to them.  Someone with a skewed idea of straight.  Like, maybe, Pablo Picasso. I was going to have to go back to Images Hair Salon in Poolesville, and let them work their magic.  And I knew they would know I tried to do it myself.

Head hung low, I went and sat in the chair feeling sheepish, wishing like hell that I wouldn’t have to explain.

My stylist, God bless her, was so sweet to me.  She was cutting, trimming and clipping and when her capable, talented hands and well-trained eyes got to my bangs, she did nothing more than pause, raise an eyebrow, smile understandingly at me in the mirror, and fixed them.

She was so nice about it, I confided in her what I had done. And get this….

….she nodded knowingly.

No surprise. No shock. No amazement.

So I have to wonder….how many people use pedicure tools to try to avoid getting a professional haircut?