I'm Keeping My Hair...at Least for Now



Do you remember Truvy's Beauty Shop
from Steel Magnolias?

This winter I caught a bad case of frumpiness. You know. Slogging around in sweats and old flannel shirts. Looking like something the cat dragged in (maybe it's drug, but Mom always said dragged.) Hubby hinted that I was starting to look like a Huxley-chick. For non-locals; Huxley is the Environmental Studies arm of Western Washington University.  Some of the more mature students there tend to be a bit granola-ish. Not the hip Seattle-Portland kind of granola. I mean the 'I've been down with the flu for 2 weeks' kind of granola. I think he's scared I'm going to go gray, grow out my hair (including leg hair), and start wearing tie-dyed shirts.
     So I gathered my frumpy self together and headed for the beauty salon. Not to my usual $14.95 haircut-with-no-style salon... but to a chic, expensive salon. There I met Vika, a cosmopolitan Russian beauty who transformed my gray roots and Lady Clairol ends to a really pretty light brown with blonde highlights and a nice cut. All for only $150.00. Plus tip. Gulp. But now I'm hooked. How can I have anyone but the lovely Vika do my hair? Besides, look at my life list...it says "find the perfect hair-do." This is as close to perfect as I'm gonna get!
     When I broke the news to hubby, I said," I don't have enough mad money to do this every 8 weeks. We need to build my hair appointments into our budget, right under the food expenses."
     He liked the hair, so he offered to pay for my next visit. Which was yesterday. This one was only a partial color so he got off cheap...$92.00. Without the tip. I paid for it on our credit card with the agreement that hubby would pay it off. So today he calls from the bank and quips, "Just called to let you to know, you can keep your hair... I've paid off the Visa card."
     "Thank-you dear, I'm so relieved. I'll look good for another two months".
     This whole thing reminds of an incident involving my Mom and my brother-in-law, Allen. As Mom got older, her hair got thinner and thinner. No matter what she did you could see her scalp. So she bought a couple of wigs. They looked pretty good as long as she was wearing her glasses when she arranged them on her head. Without glasses, it was pretty hilarious. Instead of wearing a hair-net under her wig, my oh-so-frugal Mom would cut up her old nylons and put them on her head like a skull-cap. Occasionally the nylon 'cap' would roll down onto her forehead, right over her eyebrow. And from time to time her wig would be a bit askew; making her look like her head was cocked to one side-like she was curious about something. But usually she looked very nice-she had  very few wrinkles, dressed smartly, and always looked 10-15 years younger than her true age.
     Well, one evening she donned her best wig and got all dressed up to go to dinner with my sister and her husband. After dinner, Allen drove her home. She was just getting out of his car when a strong wind came up. It caught her wig just right-and I guess she didn't have it pinned down well enough, because it flew right off of her head! There she stood in the assisted-living parking lot in her nylon 'skull cap'. Allen was a real gentleman. He chased that wig all over the parking lot. He said it was rolling around that lot like a tumbleweed. When it finally rolled under a parked car, he dove to the ground, tackled it, and returned it to Mom. She shoved the wig back on, squared her shoulders, and strolled proudly into the building, cane in one hand and holding her hair down with the other.
      So thanks to Allen, Mom got to keep her hair too!