Cut off my hair and call me shorty

I’ve been shorn. I didn’t mean to come out looking like a bloke, but staring back at me from the mirror is someone with No Hair.

Himself hates it when I go to the hairdresser as he likes my hair as long as possible. He said, ‘Don’t have it cut – I love it like a gooseberry bush.’

I think you can probably guess the gist of my reply, and as I was feeling fed up with the endless rain which seems to have seeped into my head, rendering me incapable of writing anything likely to earn me any money at the moment, I thought I’d be adventurous. My confidence seems to have been washed away by all this wet stuff, and I needed to cheer myself up. That's what Himself suggested, anyway.

Jill, my hairdresser, looked at me and narrowed her eyes and said, ‘how about going shorter? Much shorter?’

I should have realised by the word ‘much’ that she had Drastic Measures in mind, but as I trust her and she does cut my hair well, I agreed. Soon we were talking about her upcoming holiday in France, when she and her husband are going round France on motorbikes for 10 days. As she’s the same age as me (fast approaching 50) I think this is terrific, and I’d had to remove my glasses as she couldn’t cut my hair with them on, so I couldn’t really see what was going on.

Twenty minutes later, I looked up blearily and thought Oh Shit. I put on my glasses. That was worse. I looked down at the floor and saw a mass of dark curls lying like dead commas on the floor. Oh My God. I summoned a smile and said, ‘Thanks, Jill,’ in a breezy, this-is-fine sort of way and got up. More lifeless curls hit the floor. I stumbled towards the desk, paid and drifted out, feeling faint. And cold around the head.

The arrangement was that I’d ring Himself when I had finished in town so he could pick me up in order to walk the dog.

‘How’s the hair?’ he said.
‘It’s rather short,’ I said, falteringly. ‘As in, Very Short.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, if it’s too short I’ll drive straight past. Me and the dog will go somewhere else.’
I laughed as if I knew he was joking (was he?) and went outside to wait for him. Just in case, I put my hood up.

When he picked me up, he pulled back the hood, then looked at my face, by this time ashen I would think. ‘Not much you can do about it now, Flowerpot,’ he said. ‘Anyway, don’t worry. It’ll grow.’

Which is what I keep telling myself every time I look in the mirror. How long before I stop looking like a boy? Do I buy a hat? Get hair extensions? Hibernate? What shall I do?

When I told Himself that I was having problems writing (work related stuff) this week, he nodded thoughtfully. ‘You need some time off,’ he said. ‘You’re probably like that fellow – who was it - who lost all his strength when he had his hair cut?’

‘Samson. Thanks, darling.’