Salon of the Damned

The women at my salon hate me.

No matter how hard I try to impress them, they are resistant to my natural charm, and consider me a hairy, unkempt beast who comes in solely to ruin their otherwise blissful day of snipping, dyeing, and ripping hair from the faces (and backs) of men and women who are willing to pay for the privilege of having hot wax applied to their bodies and torn asunder from their unsuspecting flesh.

Maybe I'm just tainted by the women at the old day spa where I used to work who used to greet everyone with enthusiasm, even the woman whose coat smelled like dead dogs. (Note: this did not apply to People With Gift Certificates, whom they all generally perceived to be one-time-visit succubi.) Or maybe it was just because they each had their own rooms, so I only saw them when they were in the lobby-- maybe they were just as cruel and heartless towards their customers behind closed doors.

But the women at my salon, which I would prefer not to name just because they might find this blog and hate me even more, visibly frown upon entering a ten-foot space around my body, and make me feel like an awkward, shaking crack addict, willing to push myself that extra mile to get that high-- or, rather, that haircut or eyebrow wax.

Today? I went in for an eyebrow wax (because if left untended, my brows grow to a creepy Andy Rooney shape, and stake out new territories far too north on my forehead), and the eyebrow wax lady didn't speak to me except to ask me how thin I wanted to go. And every time she did speak to me, she used my name at the end of every sentence-- "How does that look, Kim? You have a nice, you know, night or whatever, Kim"-- which, for some reason, I have always taken as an act of hostility.

And while I was there I saw the woman who cut my hair, whom in a desperate effort to impress I practically shouted at in ecstasy that I had done as she advised and bought a straightening iron and was practicing using it weekly. She nodded, and then asked if I was "at least liking my new haircut more than I liked the last one" she had given me, and then went back to chatting up the girl whose hair she was shampooing.

The bad news is, I will continue to patronize this salon because they are the only people I have found that give good haircuts (except for that last one, which I really did hate) and decent waxing at competitive prices; the only other salon in town, Ladies and Gentlemen, charges roughly eight bazillion dollars per hair cut (and I mean each individual hair cut from your head), although they do throw in a relaxing facial shampoo and arm massage while you get your hair washed, so I suppose that might be worth it.

The good news is, I won't live here forever, and when I move and find a new salon-- a salon where they appreciate me, and laugh at my witticisms about how my eyebrows have become Sasquatch-esque-- the women at my salon will find their lives a little colder and a little drier, and they won't know why.

But it's because they'll miss me. And also because I'm an awesome tipper.