Nipping it

I finally realize I have a phobia. A genuine fear, one of going to the salon. Perhaps, there are counseling classes I can attend. It has taken a long time to realise or to admit to this fear. If you don’t know me, I’m the one with broken nails and whose hair is always in need of a cut.

I can find a hundred excuses not to go to a place called the salon – its expensive, its time consuming, I have work, visitors are coming next month … reasons that I think are highly justifiable.

Its really time consuming. It can take almost half a day and there’re so many other things I could be doing during that time. Forty minutes is a long time if you do not enjoy the experience, and I do not enjoy been strapped to a chair in a straightjacket while the hair dresser towers over me with a pair of scissors at my neck.

Neither do I like other people listening to my conversation. Now I don’t mind a bit of eavesdropping, especially if I am the one doing it. But I find it difficult to make small talk, so the thought that other people might be listening is mortifying and makes it that much more difficult. It seems all the other customers are happily chatting away while their hairdresser laughs like a school kid. Little confidence and knowing looks are exchanged. I desperately try to think of something amusing, witty or evenly remotely interesting to say and my mind goes blank and finally repeats for the umpteenth time how hot the weather is becoming.

Well now that I realise I have this phobia I can come to terms with it and face it head on. In fact I have already made the first step, and feeling quite pleased about it. When I left the salon this morning and she said, " See you again in six weeks," I made a mental note and said, "you mean in six months, my dear."