Scissor Happy

My mom gave me weird haircuts when I was a child.  She thought I needed to have really short hair because I had “small features.” So, I looked like Twiggy. I was very skinny, so the name fit. I’m glad that wasn’t my nickname.  Little Twiggy.  But, I don’t remember her cutting my hair too often. Most of the time she took me over to her beautician, a wild woman named Rose.

 Rose talked and talked and talked. She had a beauty shop in her basement next to the furnace ducts. I can barely remember what her basement looked like. She had an alcove by her steps. There were 2 chairs and two sinks and a big mirror on the wall.  It was always smokey. Well, mainly because most of the women in the 50′s and 60′s smoked like a chimney. Rose cut hair with a cigarette attached to her lip. I remember being mesmerized with the fact that the ashes could get so long before she tapped the cigarette against one of  many ashtrays she had lying around. Then she would put it right back.

 Rose had black as coal hair on most days. Other days it was a really ugly purple color. She wore a lot of makeup and cursed like a sailor.  I don’t know why my mom took me back there over and over again. I cried all the way home every time. I knew I was adopted, but I was beginning to believe that from the looks of things, I was half clown.

 Rose liked to drink. That may explain some of the choices she made. She mumbled a lot. It may have been because she was inebriated, or because of that cigarette attached to her lip. But, in the end, what mother lets her 12 year old daughter get her hair dyed? And, I had no choice in the matter. My mom started the whole thing….

“Rose, I was thinking…Vickie’s hair is dirty dishwater blonde in the summer, but in the winter, she looks so mousy. Can you put something on her hair to lighten it up a bit over winter so she doesn’t look so pale and sickly?”   Um, thanks Mom? Dirty dishwater blonde was supposed to be cool looking. She made it sound like…well, dirty dishwater.

 Rose got to work with her own drunken concoction. First, she decided that I needed a perm. My hair was getting longer and it was thin and stick straight. She thought that I needed some. “Oomph.”  I didn’t need oomph. I needed an escape plan.

I left Rose’s basement crying every time. I got made fun of everytime. Of course , Rose believed that the new hairstyle she gave me was one  that “everyone would be wearing.”  My mom agreed. I thought they both needed to quit smoking and attend church or at least therapy. Maybe therapy at church.

I have left there with red hair. I have left there with purple hair. Dear God, I left there with a Marge Simpson bee hive. She didn’t have hairstyle books to choose a hair style. She had Dr. Seuss books.  I’m pretty sure most of  the hair-do’s were used in The Grinch Stole Christmas , because I looked like freakin Susie Loo from Whoville. Sometimes my hair was so high because of the way she teased my hair. I almost forgot how we all teased our hair back then.

It wasn’t until I was writing this post, many years later after the fact, that I now realize why I don’t go somewhere to get my hair cut. I’m afraid of a new Rose.  I have cut my own hair off and on since I was in college. If Rose could cut hair, I could too. Hell, a monkey could cut hair better than Rose.

 When my hair was long and I wanted to cut my hair, I would put on a striped shirt and cut along the lines. Then I would have to call Linda, the girl who would re-cut my hair after each time I got scissor happy. She would ask me if I got my shirt at Gabriel Brothers, or Gabes as we called it, because my hair was always slanted.

 I don’t know why I cut my own hair. It’s a bit harder now that my hair is shorter. And I’m divorced, so he is not around to cut the back. Most of the time  I would put a towel on the floor and one on my shoulders after a shower and I would begin my beautician magic.

I’m thinking that I should make an appointment and get my haircut properly. I’m 54 years old and just thinking this. I’m such a loser.

But, if the person on the other end of the phone line says her name is Rose, I’m hanging up.