This morning I uttered words that I never dreamed would come out of my mouth: Honey, will you cut my hair? Yes me, the daughter of the always impeccably coiffed Dorothy Williams; the same woman who spends way too much money each month on my short cut and battling the ever-encroaching gray.
Here’s the thing; I leave for London a week from today on a week-long recital tour with the UAB Chamber Trio. This week is going to be insanely busy and I honestly didn’t know where I could carve out the time to see my hair stylist. Also, I sort of liked the length of my hair and wanted to take it a bit deeper in color than my stylist wants to do lately, and I liked the idea of saving a little money toward my cabin dream. Oh, the excuses a gal can come up with when she’s set on the path of destruction.
So…I did a bit of trimming around my ears and long side-swept bangs. I wanted the back shorter, but was too scared to try that by myself, so this is where Dan comes in. Now, Mr. MacKenzie is one talented and artistic man, but hair stylist is not on his resume. I thought that just trimming the back of my hair with shears should be super easy, but- being Mr. MacKenzie, he proudly pulled out power tools. Okay- just one tool operated by a battery- an electric shaver. He even had all of the different comb guards. What could go wrong?
We went out to the lower deck and I sat in the chair, already a bit giggly that we were even doing this. Dan reminded me again that he had never cut hair before as he tilted my head forward. I heard the whir of the razor and then felt it press against the back of my head in short, sweeping, strokes. Suddenly Dan said, Oops! and I nearly jumped out of the chair. Nope- it’s okay- everything’s fine! Mister wise guy is always trying to make me laugh. He then encouraged me to take a look at his work to see if I wanted to go closer. It was still a little long, so he went to get the next guard down to try again. He was doing such a great job!
The next guard seemed to do the trick, and Dan had me check the mirror to see what I thought. It looked really good, and as I came back outside to tell Dan, he said, I think I can do better; let’s try the next guard down. This is where the old adage, ‘leave well enough alone’ comes in for most people, but the Gaineys are always pushing the envelope (I mean, dear God- at nighttime you can see our house from outer space…).
The whir of the electric razor returned and I felt the pressure for a brief moment before my husband said, Uh-oh…Definitely not the word you want to hear when your husband is working on your hair with an electric razor. I laughed- You’re kidding, right? Dan sounded crestfallen, Nope, Honey. I just put a hole in your hair…I’m afraid I tried to fly too close to the sun.
He took a photo with my phone to show me. Sure enough- a hole. A pretty impressive hole. Right when I’m about to go to England to play five recitals and represent America. This had international incident written all over it…however, I was more worried about what my hair stylist, Jill, was going to do to me when she found out. I may need to bring her a nice bottle of wine as a peace offering at my next visit.
I could tell that Dan was worried, would she blow? I looked in the mirror again and giggles began to erupt, turning into full-fledged belly laughs. I told my precious husband, Honey, it’s just hair- it will grow back. How sweet of you to cut my hair for me. I kissed him and hugged him and we laughed some more.
As Dan always says, The difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is three days. It may take a little more time than that for the hole to fill in, but you never know; I may be just like the Beatles and start a whole new hair trend in London. What? It could happen!
The View from Here 