Words for My Enjoyment

I’m Getting Zero Shampoo Bowl Committment

April 1st, 2007

I’m a big proponent of haircuts and not being homeless, FYI.

I’m also a big proponent of sidestepping what I like to call The Supercuts Factor, which refers to people’s obsession with paying for a haircut that costs less than an evening at Taco Bell and the resulting haircut seemingly looks that way. That’s why I go to a hair stylist at a salon where, for a little more money, I also get my hair shampoo’d and massaged by my stylist’s assistant — who ends up being a different person every single time.

Which, incidentally, makes me feel like I’m getting zero shampoo bowl committment.

It’d be one thing if I was shampoo bowler/stylist’s assistant whose job it was to wash the hair of clients and then massage their heads over the shampoo bowl prior to the cut process. Going into that job you have to expect that each and every day you’re going to be touching a million people’s heads, washing them, massaging them, and repeating the process until the workday is done. For all intents and purposes, the shampoo bowl/washer/masseuse is expected to pair with many partners over the course of his/her employment.

But as a client, I wish I could get a little committment from these people.

Thing is, there’s huge turnover when it comes to stylist’s assistants. It’s like hair-style hazing the nth degree. You sweep up hair, you wash people’s hair, you massage people’s heads, you clean scissors, you take classes on how to cut hair — all with the ultimate goal of getting upped to hair stylist. But it’s a long road (like 1-2 years at least) before you make the cut, if at all.

Which is why every single time I show up, there’s someone new rubbing my skull.

Say what you will, but it requires a little time on my part to get comfortable with someone rubbing my head. First of all, I’ve never gotten comfortable with a guy rubbing my skull — but even when a hot female shampoo bowler is doing it, I need to feel like there’s some kind of connection there. I always try to spark conversation with them immediately out of the gate since I only have about 6 minutes and 12 seconds in which to make a connection or else this time’s hair shampoo/massage will have gone to waste.

Whether they’re talkative or not, I’ll do my best to make jokes about the temperature of the water (“No, I like third-degree burns”), the scent of the current hair shampoo they’re using (“So good I could eat it right now”) and the size of my head (“Go ahead, you can be honest — it’s the biggest head you’ve ever seen…”). Because if I can’t make that connection for next time, I’ll feel like there’s just something lacking in our relationship.

But most of the time it’s a moot point, because I’m always abandoned and left for dead.

Just like no one wants to go out on a first date and never see that person again (because it often means the date went horribly wrong), I don’t want to see you for one head massage then have you disappear forever. Shampoo bowlers should be required to at least stay in that position for a six month period. Then, at least, if we’ve connected and had a kind of committment thing going on there, and THEN you leave… Well, then when I tell people my shampoo bowler left for another job and left me behind, hey — at least it was six months.

But one time? One time only? No sir.

I am getting zero shampoo bowl committment and I’m looking for something more than zero. I want to be able to go through small talk during the first time you squeeze my temples. I want to be able to talk about our hopes and dreams during the second time you pinch my neck muscles. That third time, we’ll have been together for three months, and you can start telling me honestly how things are going in your life. By the fourth and fifth months, there’ll be that feeling of familiarity and committment and so when and if you have to leave me behind to fend for myself and find a brand new shampoo bowler — at least I’ll feel like we had something.

But right now, with this zero thing — I’m feeling nothing but jaded-angerness and a neglected skull.

Can you blame me?

Posted under Haircuts, Massage, Shampoo Bowl, Zeroes. |