Me, Mum and my fringe

Went to the hairdresser's last week - not something I really enjoy.  Someone should invent a mirror so that the victim/customer  doesn't have to look at  themselves, but by wearing special glasses (or squinting or something like that) the hairdresser can see them.  But until James Dyson turns his attention to really useful inventions we coiffurephobes will have to continue to  suffer.

Anyway I march in and demand a trim, a tiny, weeny, no more than 1cm trim.  At this point I'm kneeling before hairdresser-woman, begging, my hands in prayer as if before St Mary Magdalen who it turns out is the patron saint of hairdressers - but perhaps I should have stuck to St Jude, he of lost causes.  She seems not to have heard me.  I am hustled to a basin and forced to have my hair washed - for the 2nd time in a morning - not good for those of us with sheep-like follicles.  Then I sit before the mirror of torture and wonder why I don't wear full slap - especially  foundation  which I believe it hides a multitude of sins and then begin fantasising about bringing one of those carnival masks next time.  All the time Sweeney Toddette wields the scissors, she obviously doesn't understand metric and cuts my hair. no - shears my hair (OK -slight exaggeration, but I am still traumatised - she cuts off two or three inches).  I am then straightened and the final insult, Edwina Scissorhands cuts my fringe too short.  - I've spent the last few days pulling it down - it doesn't work  and bounces back half way up my forehead.

This puts me in mind of my mum's hairdressing misadventures when I was a teenager. There is someone I wish to impress at youth club - a sophisticated older man (i.e. a 16-year old boy in too tight jeans with an extravagant mullet).  Mum catches a glimpse of me and suggests I wear a jumper - she did not share my opinion that a skimpy pink halter-neck top was both classy and suitable for an chilly September evening.   She then announces my fringe could do with a trim and sends me to get the nail scissors and the shaving mirror - the correct tool for the job isn't a priority in our family.  I sit on the kitchen stool and she starts cutting..
' Not too short,' I plead.
She does a few more snips.  I look in the mirror - my fringe is crooked - as I feared.
'Easily remedied,' she laughs gaily.  Few more snips and then in comes Dad who points out astutely that she might want to even it up. My forehead is beginning to feel a little chilly.
Mum stops 'Well, that's the best I can do - I can't understand why your hair just doesn't grow straight.'

 My fringe is like some awful graph (the up and downy sort - not a bar graph or a pie chart) .  It is about 5 cm above my eyebrows.  I look like a bad extra from Star trek.  I weep and decide that no tiny, inappropriate halter-neck can compete with my lack of fringe.  I try pushing it back with a hair-band, but then you get the full view of my inadequate eyebrow (see Me and dad's razor  for more information).  I decide to give youth club a miss and concentrate my thoughtwaves on persuading the fringe from hell to grow before I have to go to school the next day.