Mundane chore, near tragedy

During the past couple weeks I've been thinking about cutting my hair. Nothing serious, just a cleanup of dead, split ends that I've acquired from nearly four months of inattentiveness, salt water, sun and hot springs full of minerals that are healing to the body and horrendous for my hair, leaving it crunchy for days after a soak.

The final straw came when a friend went to play with my hair but found the texture so unappealing that she immediately stopped and commented on my follicles' condition. I decided something needed to be done.

I would have preferred to find a friend to snip away at my hair for free, but finding no takers (and not having the right scissors for the job) I went to town in search of cheap salons.

After price comparing every stylist in town I reluctantly returned to Anna, a British citizen in New Zealand on a work-visa who worked in a vacant salon down the road from the car rental shops on Dent St.

She was bubbly and talkative as I unwillingly parted with my $25 and sat in her spinning chair.

“I just want the ends trimmed,” I politely instructed.

“I think your hair could use a few layers to give it some more body and lift,” she said as she held chunks of dead, lifeless hair.

I couldn't argue, the evidence of lifelessness was in her pink-manicured hand, so I said “Ok. I guess a few layers would be fine.” And without missing a beat, she lifted a section of hair from the roof of my head and cut five inches that tumbled to the ground, over my shoulder, and eventually, with a loud thud (which was probably just my heart hitting the bottom of my stomach) hit the floor.

She continued to hack away for another 15 minutes until I had a modified mullet. The front of my hair lays just below my cheekbones and the back falls down to my shoulders, and there is nothing “gradual” or layered about the situation. It is severe. Like stair steps, varying levels of hair length from top to bottom and front to back. Thank goodness tipping isn't customary in New Zealand because I don't think I could have mustered the strength to open my wallet for her a second time.

I left the shop, muttered a good-bye, and put my dark sunglasses on as I walked down the street in search of a secluded bench where I could grapple with the situation and collect my bearings. Normally a bad haircut isn't this traumatic, but on a limited budget, and one haircut every four-five months, the results of her handy-work will adorn me for some time.

Over and over I repeated the mantra “I'm not concerned with how I look, I'm not concerned with how I look.” But honestly, a vain thought would probably pass through my head even if I was secluded in a shack in Antarctica – you never know who may drop in.

So this is my most recent lesson in humility and learning to not care what others think. I'm in a country full of strangers who have no preconception of how I looked pre-mullet, so I guess they'll have to take this version of me as I am.

At least the core of me is still the same, no matter how sad a situation my hair sits in.