Amidst the noodle shops and insurance companies in the world across from Stony Brook’s LIRR tracks sits the peculiarly named “Lemon Tree” hairdresser. Although only having paid this squished shop a visit three times in my lifetime, I have never seen a single customer inside, and I’ve never seen it closed. Thus was the chain’s state after my 10 o’clock calculus class last Wednesday morning.
There are only two causes that could potentially result in my deciding to get a haircut:
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My lack of impulse control (the same reason why I have a tattoo of a knife on my hand).
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The last haircut I gave myself in the common area of my suite at 3 a.m. created kind of a mess and didn’t exactly get the job done correctly (the same reason why some of my suitemates don’t make eye contact with me anymore).
Last Wednesday’s cause was a mixture of both. Every single time I’ve gone to this hairdresser within my 8 months on this campus, I’ve been treated by Majlinda, an Albanian woman who’s had a different dye job on all three occasions. The first time I paid her a visit, I brushed out my curls, resulting in frizz that extended approximately half a foot from my head. She immediately sat me down to wash it and to douse my scalp in conditioner, which I expected. What I did not expect was to also immediately receive a full head and shoulder massage, while being told that I had come at the “perfect time” due to the full moon.
She told me more and more about how the moon affects hair growth, and how she has “the touch” that will “grant” my hair to grow, while ancient Maroon 5 hits dinked quietly from some hidden room. As she argued with the amount of hair I wanted trimmed, she took my glasses from me before I even sat down in the main hair styling chair. Due to the immediate, albeit temporary, blindness, I agreed with anything that she wanted to do to my head.
But that blindness did not restrain my incredible skill for sleuthing. Within that hour, I was able to not only determine that she was, in fact, a witch, but I was able to form the opinion that every single hair stylist at a chain haircut place is one as well.
Growing up in Upstate New York, I was accustomed to places like SuperCuts and MasterCuts if I wanted to go to a chain to get a bad haircut. I’ve never even considered going to an actual family-owned small business, or to someone I trusted to cut my hair. Once I paid $30 to get two inches more than I wanted cut off of my untamable curls at a Sears, where I was also charged an extra $8 for “unruly thickness.” And at all of these places, I was always too afraid to argue with the stylist about length or tell them definitively that I do not want layers. But until that first visit to Lemon Tree, I never understood why.
I am oftentimes questioned as to why I would trust a chain with my locks that won “Best Hair” in my high school yearbook (don’t mean to brag but…I’m bragging). Why would I let some ancient man who may have gotten his cosmetology license at a gas station and I just watched accidentally stab a little boy’s ear with trimmers, anywhere near my hair? Why do I never dare remind them that I have a side part because I look like Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, Princess of Genovia pre-makeover with a middle part? Why don’t I ever blame them when I’m drowning in tears in front of the bathroom mirror after being given an awkward in-between hairdo when all I wanted was my split ends off?
Maybe I’ve been repeatedly put under a spell by the moon hair witches, or maybe I’m just cursed by them in general. But either way, the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is five days. So-sure, Majlinda, you can try to straighten it today. I’ll take all the gel you’ve got.