TWIRL AND CURL

So my favorite beautician has packed her bags and moved to Los Angeles. Although I was quite happy for the woman, her move did not make me happy. Finding a beautician you gel with takes some time and doing. In my search for a new stylist and salon I’m pointed in the direction of “William”. I’m told that “William” is sheer genius.

Flamboyant and loud, William declares that my head is a one fine mess. “How many color’s you got up in here”, he asks as he pulls the strands one by one like they might be infested. “The one God gave me and the gray Satan slapped up there,” I reply. Now I’m watching his expression in the mirror as he screws up his face and goes, “Humph!”

Now there’s maybe five more minutes of him pulling at each strand. I start to feel like there’s some dark secret sitting on top of my skull and he’s trying to decipher the code. Then I ask him what the problem is. “Chile’ you know what the problem is,” he says to me. “Ain’t that why you here to see William?”

At this point I should have figured out that my hair was in deep, deep trouble. William then pronounces that I need a touch up on my relaxer, a deep conditioning treatment, and a serious trim. I think I was supposed to be impressed but if I recall that’s what I told him I needed when I came in the door. Then William proceeded to harass my head. As he’s doing my hair he gives me a day by day playback of his life history from the time he bumped his knee in Ms. Patterson’s third grade class and discovered he wanted to be a “beauty specialist” until his days in a London salon where he learned to cut hair with the best in the world. It was shaping up to be a long afternoon.

But things got better. William gave me a great touch up. The conditioning treatment was luxury beyond belief. Then came the haircut. I will give William his due. The man can cut some serious hair. He had those scissors slipping and sliding like Edward Scissorhands himself. The man was good. Then came the coup de grâce. As William is snipping and clipping he announces and quite loudly, “You will come see me every six weeks. I will keep your style in perfect shape. Now, I will give you the best hair cut around, but just so you know I don’t finish so well.”

Now there is some VERY LOUD silence.

William doesn’t finish so well. What the hell does that mean? Of course I had to ask the question and William explained. “Baby doll, I don’t twirl and curl. You’ll need to find you a Sheniqua to do that for you.”

Now there is an equally DUMB look on my face to go along with that VERY LOUD silence.

A Sheniqua?

“Or a Monica, a Sally Ann or a Patty. Find you a girl who twirls and curls, sweet thing. I don’t do that.” Now mind you, William says this with one of those little combs in his hand and he’s waving it from side to side as he’s staring at me in the mirror. He completes his statement by stabbing that comb like he’s punctuating the climatic end of a Broadway stage production. Then I was genuinely scared.

Haircut finished, William pulled his fingers threw my hair, pointed a blow dryer at if for a very brief moment and pronounced himself finished with me. Spinning back in the direction of the mirror it was all I could do to keep from screaming out loud. My hairdo may well have been one fine mess when I walked in but it was surely one hot mess going out.

An hour later, another salon, and a really sweet girl named Tammy had my hair hooked up. Tammy twirled and curled like there was no tomorrow. When she was finished, she complimented me on my haircut. “Whoever cut your hair,” she said, “did a great job!”

I’ll be visiting William again in six weeks.