Even with reclaimed hair color, makeup and earrings, little Dutch girl. Damn!
24 Hours from Hell
My day from hell actually started yesterday, but still qualifies as the same day since it was 21 hours ago when my best friend de Mexico arrived to go to the fiesta with me and said, “Will you get mad at me if I tell you something?” I pretty much knew she was going to comment on my hair, because she had the day before as well, telling me it needed to be layered and feathered in front. Now the front of my hair happened to be exactly the way I liked it, with a long flapper-girl curl and longish bangs that I had in fact just trimmed that morning, but, she is a really good friend and always did a good job on her own hair so against my better judgment I agreed to let her feather my bangs. “But don’t shorten the sides,” I said. “I like my hair this way.” Fifteen minutes later, after gathering comb, haircutting scissors and towel and sitting in the chair as she chop chopped, I went to the bathroom to look, eyeing warily the two locks of hair on the floor that looked too long to bode good news.
Gathering up my courage, I looked in the mirror to confront—Yikes!!! A little Dutch girl!!! This has always been one of my greatest fears. One of the others was that I’d look like a church lady and to my eyes, I looked like a combination of the two. Gone were my flapper sideburns. Gone were my peek-a-boo bangs, to be replaced by a shiny extra half inch or so of forehead above my eyebrows and bangs that went back entirely too far and in too squarish a shape. The haircut may have been perfect, but I looked terrible in it. It has always been my belief that haircuts should be sculptural according to the shape of the face, and this one did nothing for me. I was a girl In a haircut instead of the girl a haircut happened to be a part of.
I love my friend, but when she asked me I had to admit that no, I did not like the haircut. I had only myself to blame, because I knew I had an appointment for highlights the next day and could have sat watching as the hair salon lady did any light trimming. I pulled some more hair out of my updo and pulled it forward over my ears to give the effect of my former side curls and felt a bit less skinned, in spite of the bangs. Perhaps with a bit of highlighting tomorrow, it would soften the little Dutch girl squareness.
I arrived at the beauty parlor at 9 a.m. (yawn—since I’d been up since 4 trying to pump water into the newly refurbished pool from the cistern and had to get up at 7:30 to feed the animals and drive to the neighboring town for the only appointment available before I leave for my flight to the U.S. on Wednesday for my college reunion, high school reunion and family reunion.) Needless to say, I wanted to look my best and already had one strike against me.
Wanting to take no chances, I carried with me a hairpiece the exact color of my hair with the exact color and amount of highlights that I desired. I wanted to be able to wear this little hairpiece attached to a hair clip if it was necessary, I explained. I should have known it boded no good fortune when she brought out a sample of hair colors and pointed at a dark greyish-brown. No, I protested and showed her the hairpiece again, then pointed to a picture of a woman in a magazine on the counter with hair the exact color of the highlights I wanted. “And this color for the highlights, I said, in Spanish.” She nodded her head and proceeded to spend the next hour and a quarter sectioning and foiling hair.
Since she stood behind me pulling firmly back on the hair, it was necessary for me to arch my neck and pull against her, which after the first fifteen minutes gave me a cramp in my neck. At times I had to put my hands behind my neck to support it—all in all, a torturous hour and fifteen minutes. Added to this was my surprise when the minute she finished doing the front of my hair, she moved me to the sink and started removing the foil from the back. Was it finished, I asked? Oh yes, it was finished! It was another half hour before she had rinsed out the front and blown my hair dry, but I just couldn’t resist. When I had a chance to glance sideways at a mirror across the room, I couldn’t help but gasp, and a split second later, I burst into tears, for there across the room from natural-ash-blond-with-not-one-gray-hair me was a little old lady with chalk white lank hair combed into a straight do—with Dutch girl bangs and church lady ears showing.
After all that combing, sectioning and foiling, she had somehow ended up producing one uniform color all over my head and that color was—white! As the girl finished up my manicure, tears streamed down my face. My neck had grown a few more rings since the last town five-year reunion and my hips had acquired an inch or two. The one feature that I thought might redeem me was my hair and here it was—not the best of my assets but now the worst of the worst.
It was embarrassing. My pallid face now stood out in contrast to my stripped-of-color hair. My eye makeup had been cried off, my eyes were red and I felt completely foolish. By now there were a couple of other customers waiting for their turn but pride did not prevail over that huge disappointment.
But it was the color of the woman’s hair in the photo, my tormentor protested. Yes, but it was that color all over, I shot back, holding up the hairpiece. It was supposed to look like that! As I waited for my nails to dry, the manicurist and hair murderer moved to the back room where I could see them whispering. Ten minutes later as I asked for the bill, to her credit, she did not charge me. I tipped the manicurist 30% to show I harbored no ill will against her, and as I left, the hair-slayer slipped me her card, telling me to call her and she’d fit me in to correct the hair; but I knew she had no openings before it was time for me to leave, which is the reason I’d cancelled another appointment to take this one, and even if she could figure out a way to squeeze me in, I was sure I would never return to this salon.
It was 12:30—just time to stop to buy cat food before I headed back to an appointment in San Juan Cosala at one. I ducked into a convenience store in a strip mall, bought a can to tide kitty over until I could get to Walmart to buy a month’s supply, and as I walked out, caught site of a hair salon I used to frequent years ago. Quickly, I dashed in, was greeted warmly by the owner and burst into tears again, explaining my problem. Sit down now she said, and she would correct the problem with reverse highlights the color of my alleged hair, but I had an appointment in San Juan at one and didn’t have my phone to call and cancel it and didn’t know the phone number of the person I was meeting. Then come back at 2 she said, but I knew I couldn’t complete the business in San Juan in 15 minutes. But in the end I decided to drive to San Juan, tell Cynthy I had to break our appointment, then drive back to Ajijic to be saved from having to hide out in my motel room during the three reunions that awaited me in the upcoming weeks.
I arrived in San Juan, negotiating back streets thanks to the utter blockage caused by booths and carnival rides of the San Juan festival, told my woes to Cynthy, saying I’d set up another appointment to see the choreography she’d planned for the kids’ dance for the camp we were conducting a few days after I got back from the states, got into my car which was almost entirely blocked in by a huge driverless truck practically touching my back bumper, managed to back-and-forth my way out and drove six blocks, eventually finding a route up to the main highway that wasn’t blocked. I had nearly achieved my goal when a man started gesturing wildly at the right side of my car. I stopped, got out, and saw that I was riding on the rim. Long story short, somehow in the amount of time I’d been inside talking to Cynthy, someone had slashed my tire.
No phone to call either the salon where they would be waiting for me or for help, miles from the nearest tire repair, I had to start questioning my karma when a young boy stepped out from behind the parked car behind me and said that his father was a mecanico. Was this his house beside us? Yes. Was his father home? No. Did he know anyone who could help me? I suddenly regained my senses and realized I had a spare tire in my trunk, albeit buried under three dining room chairs my friend Lach had managed to puzzle into my hatchback’s trunk after he had done some repairs on them.
Two men appeared in short order, one saying he would go find a jack. Oh, I had a jack, I protested, and twenty minutes later after a lot of struggles over the poorly designed Honda jack, which kept coming disengaged from the handle, I had paid them three times the going rate for tire changes (my choice, they didn’t give a price) and headed off to be saved by Mario, the ex-seminary student hairdresser who sported no fewer than three Virgin Mary images at his station. I emerged an hour and a half later looking less like Carol Channing and more like myself, having said a few prayers myself during the process. There is more than one way to convert a sinner such as myself.
Now I’m off to return to the convenience store, having found their cat food is 6 pesos less than the same cans at Walmart. Then home to see if water has been delivered from the street into my pool and to continue doing the dozens of little chores necessary before I leave Wednesday. Restored to myself, I won’t be spending much time in my motel room other than hours spent sleeping. I have been through the fires of Hell and emerged triumphant––funny bangs and all!
(As for my pledge to never enter the first salon again? I think I will be breaking that vow very very soon, since I have just discovered I left my last bottle of my favorite nail polish (a discontinued color, of course) that I paid $15 (plus shipping) for on the internet—the last of the remaining 6 bottles left in the world––all of which I’d purchased a year and a half ago, as well as a brand new bottle of self-drying top coat not available in Mexico. As for the pool? I arrived to find it drained dry and a fresh new little gift from Morrie in its exact middle. Don’t know how the water got out as I closed all the valves before sitting up all night to pump two feet of water into it. My little jinx continues.)
Here is a photo of the inside of the salon that saved me–and also the salon pictured in my Thursday Door shot today, Nov 21, 2019. This photo is just for you, Janet, as per your request.
