Have you ever had a bad haircut?
I mean really bad. Bad squared. A haircut that looks like your stylist had hand tremors and advanced cataracts. A fiasco you hide under a ball cap or headscarf for a month because it brings to mind the Rolling Stones’ song “Look What The Cat Dragged In.”
I have suffered my fair share of such hair-assment, beginning in boyhood when my dad used electric dog clippers on my two older brothers and me. Why dog shears, you ask? Because our miniature poodle Mac turned into the Tasmanian Devil when Pop tried unsuccessfully to groom him and doggone it if those brand-new clippers were going to go to waste!
In college, I had only myself to blame when I started going to a local beauty college because it only cost five bucks. That might sound even riskier than facing dog clippers, but in truth the haircuts usually turned out not half-bad because the instructor would touch up – or, if need be, entirely redo – everything after the student took a stab at it.
A few times, however, even Vidal Sassoon could not have repaired the original effort. Stubbornly, like a person playing a slot machine, I kept pulling the $5 handle hoping for three cherries. Alas, “One More Try” too often led to two other songs by the Stones: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “No Use Crying.”
My hair-razing tale hit rock bottom one day when the student stylist in training kept trying to even up one side – snip-snip – then the other – clip-clip – then the first side again – snip-clip – and so on, until my Bjorn Borg-like locks were barely longer than the buzzed lawns at Wimbledon. I wore a knit cap all of spring semester.
Over the ensuing years I tried small barbershops and big chains with “Super” and “Super Duper” in their names, but the results continued to be lemon-cherry-7. Until I hit the 7-7-7 jackpot with a woman named Rosa who cut my hair just the way I like it – shorter than when I arrived, yet looking like it hadn’t just been cut. For the next five or six years, I was in haircut heaven.
And then came COVID-19. The longer the pandemic went, the longer my locks grew. Three months became six months and then, stubbornly just for the heck of it, a full year and beyond without a haircut. Finally, I took my Rapunzel-like mane back into the barber chair. A different chair, though, because Rosa’s shop had gone out of business.
Another Rolling Stones’ song, “The Worst,” describes the result. Fortunately my weed-whacked hair grew out, and then some, by the time my son’s recent wedding rolled around. Not wanting to risk accenting my groomsman’s tuxedo with a ball cap, I was in need of a Hair Mary miracle.
My much-better-half has gone to the same stylist – and, shhhhh, colorist – since before my son was born, always with Hollywood-like red-carpet results. “Give Patti a try,” Lisa urged. “She’ll do a great job.”
Patti’s place is a Frisbee toss from the beach with a hippie vibe and even an antique barber pole inside. In other words, I loved it. As she went to work, her adorable little dog sat nearby. His name is Jagger, like the rock star, so I don’t have to tell you the background music was awesome.
Jagger’s human namesake, Mick, famously sings the song “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” but I felt completely the opposite when I got out of Patti’s chair. It was best haircut of my life.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com