Stiff

Dearest Shampoogirl,

Your blonde tresses are really pretty, but I am afraid they are not enough. Nor was your skill in clipping a black towel around my neck that exemplary: the towel slithered to the floor moments later and lay there, rejected, for the next two hours. I felt its pain.

You see, Shampoogirl, as much as it must suck to roll little towels and stuff them in a basket, as much as it must nauseate you to wash hair, oh, three times in two hours, or lead a client to the dryer now and then, it is simply part of your job. I don't believe the salon hired you to be Stuckupprincessgirl.

Thanks to you, my forehead is brown. My scalp and hair really did need more than the ten-second swoop of suds, and rubbing one side of my head was just the ticket. Oh, and the joyful 30 minutes under the dryer with ice cold air blasting on my glaze was just so divine. I felt so precious when you stomped your royal foot and ordered me to another chair when I dared to grab a magazine. Oh, the agony!

Shampoogirl, all my life I have been a generous tipper. I've served for a living and I know how awful it can be. Today I did something I've never done in my entire life: I kept your tip in my pocket. And gosh, Shampoogirl, not one of the other women you hosed down this afternoon coughed it up, either. We weren't cheap. We didn't forget.

But apparently you did.

Your dyed-and-not-so-devoted customer,
The fat lady