All Signs Say "Mom Needs a Vacation!"

I should've known when I put the lid to my deodorant on my perfume bottle and the lid to my perfume on my deodorant, that today was not going to be my "best ever."

After clumsily navigating the morning, almost dumping the WRONG cereal into my daughter's bowl (oh, now that would be devastating!), I ventured back up to my bathroom to tackle the job which I had become fondly calling "de-tangling the frizzy mess that is my hair."

My hair. Oh, it gives me much grief. While I do enjoy keeping a large amount of it on my head (it differentiates me from the boys this way), I definitely have a love/hate relationship with my tresses.

And when the length gets to the point that I am having to gingerly work my way through the knots several times a day (sometimes borrowing my 4-year-old's No More Tangles), I know it is time for a change.

Normally I would look through magazines to find the cut I want, bring it to a salon and beg someone to try to get as close as possible to the look I am going for. This has happened with success roughly two times in my entire life. I will not even venture to explain the mullets I've ended up with when I've asked for "soft layers."

Naturally, I have developed an aversion to salons and just relied on the even cutting skills of my husband and/or 10-year-old son to give the back of my hair a quick trim while I handle the front.

I know, I know. This is not the way to go about these things. But motherhood, time constraints, budget constraints and the fact that my husband visits the "man salon" twice a month, leave me no choice. I'm easy that way. Easy Like Sunday Morning . . .

Until today - and this should serve as fair warning to anyone reading that pre-menstrual women with hair issues should NOT be left unsupervised with a pair of sharp, not toddler-sized, scissors.

I present to you, exhibit A:

My mom always told me of how she and her girlfriends would put their hair in ponytails and cut away, leaving them with the perfect layered hairstyle (they called it a "shag"). So that's what I did. I bundled up my hair in a ponytail and took one swipe with those sharp scissors. I examined the 3 inches I'd cut off and decided that wasn't enough, so I cut another 3 inches off. It's okay, I'm not eighteen, and Jon Bon Jovi doesn't care what my hair looks like, so what the heck?

I know, ridiculous. The front is even longer than the back, like this - exhibit B:


Which I thought would be no big deal, as I wasn't going anywhere today - no chance of having my hair judged by anyone else, right?

Wrong. As luck would have it, right in the middle of my "I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying home with my new hair cut" day, the phone rang. I looked at the caller id, it was the boys' school, I had to answer.

"Hi Mom," said a little voice on the other end of the line.

"Hi honey. Is everything okay?" I asked.

"I forgot my homework, can you bring it to me?"

Oh crap.

"Sure, I'll be there in half an hour."

I need a vacation - and a good salon.