I've always been afraid of hairdressers. This somewhat rational fear can blamed on my mother who assured me at age seven she was just going to give my hair a wee trim. Scissors poised in hand I'll never forget that fateful snip snip snip. I got up and walked calmly to the bathroom mirror to inspect the minor alteration. What reflected back at me was terrifying beyond words. A shorter than short pixie boy cut. Hair poked out at alarming and terrifying angles.
Obviously in shock I ran around the house crying hysterically and deliriously yelling 'How could you?!?!' for half an hour.
The next six months were scarring to say the least. One day swimming at our local pool two eight year old slappers came up to me and asked 'Why are you wearing girls togs?' I cowered mumbling that I was in fact a girl but this was lost, drowned out by their catty laughter.
I've asked my mother in retrospect why she made me look like a mutant boy in fluro prints and floral pastels and she simply shrugs her shoulders and says 'low maintenance'. I now have long hair. Any thing too short and I am seized with fear that I look in fact, male. I lopped off my hair a few years back trying a cute bob only to be greeted by my (now ex) boyfriend at our front door who told me solemnly 'I don't like it' and then turned and shut himself in the lounge.
With my tragic and sorrow filled hair history I am now faced with a daunting challenge. I need a trim. I live in Japan. Most Japanese hairdressers do not speak english. Therefore I am quaking in my boots. I am not willing to revisit my boyhood. Wish me luck.
