I was just washing my face and brushing my teeth to get ready for bed.  As the water was running, the drain did its usual gurgling.  Every time I run water at that sink in the master bath, it gurgles.  I know it is clogged with hair…I know it needs to be cleaned out.  I even bought one of those drain “cleaner thingies” that is a long plastic strip with barbs on it that you run down the drain to catch the hair and pull it back out.  I bought it probably six months or more ago and still haven’t used it.

I haven’t used it because I know I’m going to pull out slimy hair…MY slimy hair.   It will probably be the equivalent of the hair on a full-sized Sasquatch!  It will be a wet, slimy, stinky Sasquatch!!!  I know I’m going to gag, and I know I’m going to cuss myself as I’m gagging for letting the hair go down the drain.

You see, I have cut my own hair for years.  I went to a beautician a few times, but generally left thinking “I could have messed it up this badly on my own and saved a heck of a lot of money.”  They always cut it too short and I leave looking like a chicken.  There were probably three times in my life that I got my hair cut by a professional and left without a chicken cut.  The struggle is real!

Each time I would like a haircut, when I would go to make a second appointment, the stylist would no longer be at that salon.  After this happened two times, I had my hair cut a year or so later by a stylist and loved it. I told her “You’re going to be going to another salon within a month or two.”  She laughed and told me she loved where she was working and wouldn’t be going anywhere.  So, I made an appointment for six weeks later.   Weeks later I received a call from the stylist saying the salon had gone out of business and she was moving out of state.  At that point, I just gave up.

I began cutting my own hair when I was in junior high.  My dad was a typical old-fashioned southern man who felt all women should have long hair.  (It didn’t matter whether it looked good or not…they should have long hair in his eyes.)  I hated it!  I wanted my hair shorter.

So, I began to cut my own hair….just a little bit…maybe half an inch a week.  Daddy didn’t notice.  So every week or so I would cut a little more, then a little more.  Finally one night after now having hair above my shoulders, we were having dinner and Daddy looked at me and yelled, “What the hell have you done to your hair???”  Of course I demurely answered “Nothing, Daddy.”  He screamed and cussed and threatened to take the belt to me if I ever cut it again.  I was terrified of that belt, but deep inside I have a rebellious streak and the urge to have short hair ate at my soul for years.

After going to live with my Aunt Della (Sissie) and Uncle Bill when I was sixteen, I developed a friendship in high school with a girl named Becky.  Becky was sooooo cool.  She had a little red Karmann Ghia convertible and Becky had a pixie haircut!!!!  Oh my gosh!  I wanted to be Becky!!!

One day Sissie agreed to take me to her beautician, Myrtle.  Myrtle gave me my FIRST professional short haircut.  It wasn’t a cool pixie like Becky had, but it was short.  I loved how light and free it felt.  Since that time, I have kept my hair short for most of my adult life.  I think some of the reasoning was deep-seated rebellion from my dad (who is long dead) but I also have a head way too small for my body, so long hair seemed to take over my small face.  Short hair just always seemed to suit my little pin head.

When I would cut my own hair I would always do it in front of the bathroom mirror, close off the drain and let most of the hair fall into the sink.  Afterwards I would take paper towels, gather up all the hair in the sink and put the hair in the trash.  There were always a few little hairs that I would miss that would invariably end up going down the drain.  Those added to hairs from Art rinsing out his razor in that sink…well, Houston we have a problem!

I’ve always had a man around to clean out the drain when it would plug, but now on my own I alone must do battle.  Some people say Sasquatch don’t exist, but I KNOW they are real.  I KNOW because there is one in my bathroom drain!