A Hair Out of Place

Actually, nowadays I have a whole head of hair "out of place", so I apologize for misleading you with my choice of title for this piece. Apparently full disclosure and total honesty are not my strong suits!

It all started out well enough. You see, I enjoy trimming my hair myself and have been doing so for years. Mind you, I'm not talking about a full haircut, but rather just a little trimming here and there to stretch my salon-styled haircut just a few more weeks. (Yeah, I am one seriously cheap muchacha!) I do this with just a Fiskars scissors and a comb and have had pretty good results over the years. This time, however, I left my Fiskars at home. Instead, I have at my disposal a Wahl hair clipper. I've never used an electric clipper on myself before, but I figured "how hard could it be???" (An old family inside joke. Ask my nephew-in-law about that sometime.) Having nothing better to do and no hair salon in sight, I figured why the heck not give it a go?

As I said, it all started out well enough. I attached the longest guide comb that we have to the clipper and went to it. It turns out that the #4 guide comb is considered a half-inch cutter. (I didn't find this out until after the fact, when I went online to research purchasing additional guides.) Regardless, I knew from just looking at it that it would cut way too short but I figured I could make do with it by just holding the clipper "just so" vertically and by not actually letting the tips of the guide comb touch my scalp. This strategy worked pretty well and I was happy with the results on the top front half of my head. Great swatches of hair went flying and rained down all around me. It was kind of fun creating all of this chaos and I giggled gleefully with the excitement of it all!

Next I had to tackle the sides above my ears. Right side - no problem! (I'm right-handed.) Left side - BIG problem! (Note to self: left side vs. right hand. They just don't play well together!)

By now you have to realize that I'm quite a few minutes into this thing, what with all of the studying of my progress in the mirror and all. You know the old adage: measure twice, cut once, right? So there was a whole lot of that going on, and now the clipper was getting heavier and heavier in my hand and my wrist was getting a tad tired. It would have been a piece of cake if I was ambidextrous, but alas, I am not. And thus, the trouble began...

As I came in on the approach to the left side, my wrist drooped lazily and the next thing I knew, I'd gouged a deep trench from front to back above the left ear. I mean it was really short! Damn those electric gizmos! It was all over almost before I'd started!

Well there was nothing for it now but to redo the whole job up to this point and cut the rest of it within an inch of its life just to attempt to even things up a bit. And wouldn't you know it? I think I just made things worse! How could that be, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. I discovered that at my birth I was visited by not just one cow, but by a whole HERD of cows who licked the top of my noggin viciously, with fervor and demonic glee! Unbeknownst to me, my head is literally covered with cowlicks. I kid you not. Now that my hair is at most about an inch long, it sticks up in all kinds of wicked directions, making me look like some crazed axe-wielding dyke! Not my best look.

I finally had to admit defeat, got smart, and summoned Brad to rescue me and cut the back of my head. (No. The HAIR, silly, not to decapitate me. Although at this point this option could save me months of embarrassment and hat-wearing.) If you had the misfortune of reading my haircutting story from our boat trip to Alaska three years ago, you would know how big a risk this was for me. Anyway, Brad was sufficiently contrite from those past offenses and did a fine job this time. Thank God! (Hey! He couldn't do much worse than what I'd done to myself. Oh wait. I take that back. Actually, he COULD do much worse. And has! But I forgive him now. Sort of.)

I am happy to report I have learned a valuable lesson from all of this. When it comes to using electric clippers, it's better to put them in the hands of a third person, no matter how competent at hair-cutting you might think you are. No more self-mutilation for me!

Now, on to Brad's haircut. Let's see just how far the trust goes... :-)

P.S. No pictures will be posted for obvious reasons!