Hair Kills

I'm a redhead. And a blonde. And a brunette, and a couple of other things that might not even have names.

When you go from having well-trimmed, mild-mannered, nice people hair to a bushy mane of fierce in a single morning, you notice how heavy hair really is. But the extra weight was definitely not what hurt the most about having extensions of all different colors put in. What hurt the most was the pain.

The colorful extensions were for a L'occoco fashion show, and as L'occoco kept reminding me, 'anything for fashion, right?' In this case, that anything meant millions of tiny heart attacks crawling over my head and gnawing at the battered and threadbare skin that once proudly covered my skull. It's funny how each tug sends lightning bolts of pain straight down into the depths of your chest like a seed of evil winding its way through your body and sprouting up through the top of your head. Well, not funny exactly.

While having the full attention of one stylist for the systematic torture of my head was certainly an honor, when the second one arrived to lend a hand to the barbaric process, it nearly moved me to tears. My heart was torn between the two beautiful women each yanking me toward her by the roots of my hair. It got to a point where all I could do was just close my eyes and think of all the mean things I was going to say about them in this post.

And next on my fashion bucket list: trendy waterboarding.

This fun and games put me in such a bad mood that small talk with my captors was out of the question. Even sex with them was quickly moving off the table. In fact, it occurred to me that if my hairdressers and a pizza deliverywoman stripped down to the skin and began to make love to me passionately right there and then, I would probably have to furrow my brow and say to them, "Ladies. Please. ..Let's be professional." Or maybe not. We'd have to see.

On the bright side, the keratin with which they attached my new hair to my old smelled of honey, jasmine, and cucumbers. On the down side, one among many, I now smell like those three things.

As they continued attaching more and more hair, I began to understand how troll dolls and pokemon wizards feel. There are two things I hate most in life, and having hair in my eyes is definitely one of them. I began to have trouble breathing through my helmet of hair. Finally I could no longer see the screen of my note taking iPhone through the colorful curtain of hair that told my eyes the first act was over. That may be why this post is gradually becoming less and less clever.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I couldn't even see the mirror through all the head fur. And did I mention the pain? My nails dug their way deeper and deeper into my knees as stylists One and Two, Older and Younger, yanked bits of my already malnourished brain through my scalp.

The head honcho hairdresser kept screaming at the other one to make the extensions thinner, which could only mean one thing: more extensions and more pain. Through the blinding stabbings of pain I may have also heard her mention that apparently I have freckles on my scalp. I also have a rebellious face, but that I knew. It has been drilled into me.

There grew to be a total of six stylists standing around me, oohing and aahhing over their creation. By the end I was ready to plead for mercy and tell them anything they wanted.

I wonder if Hitler whistled while he metaphorically put extensions in the Jews' hair.

Finally, after two full hours of continuous and completely enveloping pain, the kind your threshold never gets used to, the ordeal drew to a close. I left with at least one section of my cranium, the section where Younger worked, that has either been fantastically overstimulated or fatally ruined. That would make me either a parietal lobal genius or a vegetable. I plan to blame the events of today if anyone ever complains about my sensational, handwriting, or body positioning functions in the future. Yes, I Googled that.

Also, next time the sink clogs up, you will know who to blame.

As you can see, I learned to take notes on my iPhone without seeing.

Thanks to this merging of minds, however, next year's L'occoco event may feature an idea we kicked around in the L'occoco chambers of anguish: beard extensions. Think Biblical vogue and going all Old Testament up in here. Think Punk Moses and the Parting of the Fluorescent Pink Sea.

Now I'm going to try to get some sleep without any part of my bruised head touching any surface.