Clearly needs more time in school

This afternoon I took myself off to the hairdresser. I have finally found another hairdresser I like, or rather, one that I think I like but it's me after all and it will take a good year of good haircuts before I really decide I like her. At the moment I'm just happy I don't hate the haircut within minutes of leaving the salon.

And enough of my neuroses.

So it's a nice salon, they do the head / shoulder massage prior to the hairwashing, offer tea / coffee / flavoured water etc., and they often do really nice hair washing as well, with lots of scalp massage and pleasantly aroma-ed products. So I settle myself into the lounge chair for the head wash, already juuuuusst starting to relax ... 

(having spent the morning chasing my child all over creation because of the people who decided to hold a birthday party for a three year old at an ENORMOUS OPEN PARK, and then dilly around not entertaining / engaging said three year olds, so that my kid got bored within about five minutes and decided that he didn't WANT to be at the party any more and hey! thick bushes hundreds of feet away! Let's go THERE! Did I mention he was the only boy, so while all the girls spent their time calming decorating their crafts with stars and sequins and feathers he was all "I've had it with this sh*t, I will consent to putting a single HUGE pompom on my craft but THAT'S IT. And then HEY BUSHES!" I called it minimalist.)

The fact that she held the shower head completely flush with my scalp should have been my first clue that something was amiss. It was just ... odd. Strange feeling. I mean, I admit that I like the pressure of the water jets close up, but the actual hardness of the shower head was a little strange. And then she shampooed and put in the conditioner and started the head massage which started out fine and then culminated in her pinching my head all over. You know the kind of pinch where you use all your fingers and sort of slide your fingertips in a pinching motion along someone's skin, not actually pinching but that same motion? Firmly and decisively? Yeah, that. She did that TO MY HEAD. All over. Staccato pinching. Let me tell you, if you need to know: NOT RELAXING.

And THEN she splashed the water over my face, and apologized profusely while mopping me up and be a little less gentle than someone should be when wiping near someone's eyes, and culminated in the most vigorous head scrubbing / drying that I have ever received, which included her trying to wipe the water out of my ears with all the gentleness of someone trying to calm a frenzied and excited dog whose been out in the water, and ... 

and I couldn't help laughing. You know the kind of laughter that you try and suppress, because it's really not appropriate to the situation, because after all I'm in an uptown salon and there are other customers and let's face it, I'm laughing AT this woman and her bizarre head pinching massage, and just thinking about it still makes me smile and kind of chuckle. 

So anyway, that was my day. The haircut is nice, the hairdresser herself was her usual pleasant self, and now we're home and eating souvlaki and potatoes and greek salad and all in all it's a nice day. But the pinching? Still makes me laugh.