May Blossom just had her first bought-and-paid-for haircut. And boy does it look like crap. It was meant to look like the Duplo Native American child’s hair, pictured. It doesn’t.
Having being born with an unusually thick crop of dark hair – for an Anglo baby, at least – May Blossom is no stranger to the scissors. She had her first haircut around four months of age, and since then she has had a trim about every six weeks.
Mostly we take her to the haircuttery H and I (and most everyone we know) frequent, Barberia. It’s run by a delightful couple called Matthew and Cheryl, who operate out of the ground floor of their Surry Hills terrace. They are funny, charming and talented hairdressers, who happily send us downstairs to their living room when we need to change May Blossom’s nappies. Now that is service. They’ve always trimmed her hair free of charge when H or I are having a haircut, and they have promised to let us know when the freebies need to stop, so I think we’re all comfortable with the situation.
But because I am too lazy to drive across town and we don’t have enough activities to occupy us today, this morning I stopped in at a local salon, the name of which I will not give here because they might sue me for saying what I am about to write.
The man who cut May Blossom’s fringe should be locked up. He should be made to wear a hair shirt, clamped in straightening irons and sent to Tasmania or Rottnest Island (both still penal colonies I think?).
If the salon were to sue me for slander and take me to court, I wouldn’t be able to prove that I didn’t walk in and ask if there was anyone working today who might be able to make my daughter look like she had been attacked by a blindfolded, crack-smoking badger with pinking shears and a Tetris fixation. Her fringe is choppy, messy and has a distinct lean. It would be my word against theirs. So I won’t name the establishment.
I think she’s cute enough to pull it off, but the hairstyle does have a certain institutional look to it. Combined with her orthopaedic-style I Can Jump Puddles boots, her style could be described as 99 per cent still hilarious and adorable, 1 per cent crippled orphan from the 1940s.
I hope it’s the last bad haircut she’ll ever have, but the odds are not in her favour. I’ve had some shockers in my time. Once I left a fancy-pants salon, having dropped a not insignificant amount of money on hair colour and cutting, and a block down the street a carload of teenage boys slowed down beside me. Here we go, I thought. Bring on the wolf whistles; the lewd comments about my bum. Alas, they rolled down the window and one yelled ‘Go to a fucking hairdresser!’.