Hair Conversations with Mary

I have a cute little hair stylist. Mary, my coiffure expert, is a 19 year old advanced student at the Dallas Roberts academy. She makes me almost feel young again as she chats with me about her dating life, her room-mates, all the things that I am many years beyond now. It takes about 4 hours, start to finish, for her to do my hair. But she does a fabulous job, even if she does insist on giving me the 'Utah Poof,' (see picture) so I always go back.

I sat fidgeting in the chair this past Saturday, my butt going numb at about the 100th foil. For the 78th time I picked a fallen hair (my own) off my black smock and with waggling fingers released it to the hair laden salon floor. Mary giggled.

"You don't like hair, do you?" She asked. I shuddered.

"I HATE hair. HATE it."

"Why?"

"It's a textural thing."

"Textural?"

"Yeah. Like when it's wet and gets stuck to your fingers, or when you can it tickling down the back of your shirt, or when..."

"When you pull one out of your mouth?" Mary supplied helpfully.

I wretched and swallowed excess spit. "Yes. Like that."

"That's weird. It's never bothered me."

"Yeah, I'm weird. I have a few things like that."

"Like what?"

"Wet bread. Like when they make a sandwich at Subway and they put the tomatoes next to the bread and it gets all soggy." Cyndi shudders again.

"What else?"

"Well for icky mouth-feel I'd have to say pudding, yogurt, peanut butter, jumbo marshmallows. For tactile ickyness it would be cardboard, dishwater with floaty things, and dryer lint." Cyndi shakes her hands to rid them of the phantom dishwater floaties they're now feeling. Mary smiles.

"Yeah, I know. I'm a weirdo." I reply.

"No!" She tries to assure me exuberantly. "You're just, you're just..."

"Crazy?"

"Nuh uh! No! You're totally not!"

"It's okay. Really. I know I'm warped."

She sighs and fiddles with a foil, clearly searching for something she can say to make me feel better. "I don't like ketchup. That's weird, right?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess so," I reply shifting cheeks.

"This is going to look hot," she says changing the subject.

"Sweet," I reply.

I'm a freak.


-Cyndi