Hats...I've got a million of 'em!!

Friday was the day to have my roots done and highlights put in again. I'm just now calming down from the experience. Not that anything happened; it didn't. In fact, now that I've found Ingrid, a marvelous hair dresser, the experience was positive, the results exactly as I wanted. Simply put, she is a jewel.

But folks, it's not always been that way since moving to Lynchburg. I went through a lot of hair raising experiences before finding my Ingrid, you can be sure of that.

Frankly, I don't know where to begin my "tale of hair woe." I just so happened to visit a beauty shop the day after Jerry Falwell passed away. I should have known better. I'd been to the bank and grocery store where tellers and cashiers were openly crying; their grief over the passing of this man, who'd impacted our city, was great. But, as is so often the case with me, I was in a world of my own. I walked into a beauty shop and asked for a haircut and a few blonde highlights. The beautician, sobbing openly into a tissue, tossed a sample book onto my lap. I should have headed for the door when she leaned over my shoulder and wailed, "Oh, what will we do without him?"

I was going for something conservative--a few streaks to make my hair look sunkist. What I got was a head of bright yellow hair that would have put Big Bird to shame. I schlepped to the car and called Calvin on the cell. I, too, was crying, but not over the passing of a man of God. After all, he was in heaven: I was in "hair hell"!

When I pulled into the garage ten minutes later, Calvin was waiting on me, ready to pay me a compliment and offer his usual brand of support. He took one quick look at my hair, his eyes opening wide, and then stared at the tops of his shoes, probably checking them for hairline cracks. I invested in hats to hide my awful-looking hair.

A month later I went back to get the blonde covered. I'd decided I'd go back to my original color of dark auburn. The beautician and I chose a shade close to the  color I'd had as a young adult. We'd just decided on the color when a process server walked in and served her with divorce papers. Poor thing hadn't been expecting it. And frankly I should have snuck out of the salon when I heard her in the back room, mixing my color, all the while ranting and raving and screaming at God. "Strike him dead, God! Send the lightening bolt down on that cheating, no good man's stinkin' hide!" She slapped hair color on my hair while she continued venting. "The jerk moved out over the weekend. Claimed he needed some space. Hunh! Not once did he mention divorce to my face." The slapping on of hair dye with a wide paint brush continued. Now I don't mean to imply that she got the color too red, but a fireman tried to hang a ladder on my back as I was walking to my car. I bought more hats...

Then there was the time I went to a beauty shop for a simple haircut (I'd sworn off coloring for a couple years for obvious reasons). The young, gum-smacking girl had a hank of my hair on the top of my head tucked tightly between two fingers, her scissors poised to make a cut, when she glanced out the window just in time to see a truck hit her car. She reflexively snipped and I was left with a half inch tuft of hair on the top of my head; it was over a month before it was long enough to lie down. I bought more hats.

So as you can see, going to the beauty shop had become a traumatic event for this old broad. But Ingrid has changed the stressful experience into a pleasurable one. She takes pride in her work, and if YOU aren't happy, she's not happy. Any one wanna buy some hats?