Measurements, the Unspoken, and Porter Wagoner

Val is no Biblical Samson. Her strength comes from within, not from her long flowing locks. Which are excessively long, not having been trimmed since before her Unfortunate HospitVALzation back in 2022. That's a long time!!! Normal hair grows about 1/2 inch per month. That would give Val 24 extra inches of hair! Thankfully, Val does not have normal hair. It's limp and seemingly lifeless, and grows slower. That said, my hair was down between my shoulder blades. A supermullet of epic proportion!

It's not that I didn't WANT to get my hair cut. It was just inconvenient. You may recall that my salon of choice was Terrible Cuts. The chain. My location was in a mini-mall, with Little Caesar's Pizza on the other end, and a Payday Loan business in between. I was fine with that. I'd gone there for years, even taking the boys when they were young.

Then I got sick, and wasn't feeling up to an outing for a haircut. Then my knees were really hurty, and I didn't like to think about walking up the hill from parking to get inside Terrible Cuts. Nor trying to bend my right knee to perch my foot on the footrest of the lifty chair. THEN there was a fire!!! In Little Caesar's. Which swept through the ceilings (FIREWALLS, anybody?) and ruined all three businesses. The renovations have just begun over the past couple months. I have no idea if the same businesses will even return. So Val has been a woman without a salon. I made do by trimming my own bangs. And occasionally having The Pony or Hick cut off the ends so they stayed out of my collar.

For the past year, at least, and likely more... my "stylists" have been reluctant to pick up the scissors. The Pony did a fine job the first time, but seems to have lost interest in coiffing me. Hick always has something else to do. I'd better not find out he's been cutting Harem hair!

I could stand it no longer. On Sunday evening, I TOLD Hick he was cutting my hair. I put on an old collar-less shirt and grabbed the scissors and a comb. I wet my hair at the kitchen sink, and took Hick out on the back porch. 

"Just do it like last time. Comb it straight down. I want it at shoulder level. Here. Start at this side. Then work your way around to to the other side."

What could possibly go wrong? Most people know what a shoulder is. They can run a comb down through a section of hair. Cut along the bottom, at the shoulder. Then continue combing down swatches of hair, cutting them off even with the first section. RIGHT????

It started out all right. Though I questioned Hick if that was my shoulder. He said it was. My first panic occurred at the back of my head.

"WAIT! Why do I feel the scissors at the base of my skull? STOP! Why are you up that high?"

"I'm not, Val. I'm just cutting." SNIP SNIP.

My second panic was when Hick got to the end, the other front side. He didn't even want me to turn around!

"What do you mean? You HAVE to look me in the face. To make sure both sides are even!"

"No I don't. It's even." I forced him to look me in the face. "Well. This side might need a little more..."

I felt where Hick had cut. My hair was GONE! My shoulders won't be reintroduced to that hair for at least three months! Maybe four! How can a man not know what a shoulder is? Does he think it's a void midway between ear and collar bone?

Of course all Hick the Gaslighter had to say was: "I think it looks cute."

When I picked up The Pony on Monday, to come out for our BBQ, I had to ask.

"Aren't you going to say anything about my haircut?"

"Oh. Well..."

"I suppose your hesitation says all I need to hear."

"No. It's... shorter." 

"I KNOW! Your dad can't do one simple thing! I know you're not old enough to remember, but Dad has made me look like PORTER WAGONER! I have that CD of Porter and Dolly's 20 greatest hits. Maybe you remember the cover."

"Uh. Kind of."

"Yeah. That's what I thought. I have Porter Wagoner's haircut. Only shorter."

I find it kind of odd that not one person has mentioned my haircut. When usually that's the first thing they say. Like the clerks I see regularly at the Gas Station Chicken Store, or in 10Box. I guess they're not Porter Wagoner fans.