I have a lot of hair.  At least, for the most part, it stays on my head, which at an age where the hair starts thinning on our heads, and growing everywhere else we don’t want it to, I suppose I should shut up and be grateful.  But when I say a lot, I mean A LOT.  It’s thick, and wavy and heavy and it has a mind of its own. It took me until I was over 40 years old to figure out that maybe it’s just best to leave my hair to professionals.  Real, bonafide expensive stylists at real salons who know what they hell they are doing with the scissors.  It now takes an hour to cut and style my hair.  Back before I resisted the temptation to layer it, it took less than ten minutes to tidy up the ends, because I wore it at one length to my waist.  Now it is layered and blown and smoothed and straightened.  All to give that casual windblown “I just got out of my Jaguar convertible” look.

But I am a complete piker in comparison to my grandmother.  She was of the generation that had her hair “set”.  Twice a week she went in to be washed and teased and sprayed and it was definitely NOT designed to look effortless.  She wore her towering hairdo like a badge of honor.  She was a woman who could afford to be “done” and it should, by golly, look like she had been.  I remember going with her, sitting in the waiting chairs with a “Highlights” magazine, amidst the smell of perm solution and a haze of “Adorn” hairspray, waiting for her to emerge from under the giant bonnet hairdryers, a mountain of curlers on her head like so many spiked caterpillars.  I wince when I think of the times she sat, cigarette dangling from between perfectly lacquered nails, while she was sprayed down, holding the little face shield in her offhand.  It’s amazing she never lit the stream of hairspray on fire like a blowtorch.

My grandmother never went to bed without a open-top turban on her head, and she slept only on satin pillowcases.  That seemed so exotic to the younger me, the one that napped on her bed, with my cheek against the cool slick pillow, inhaling the smell of her face lotion.

It wasn’t until I was in middle age myself that I understood the salon thing.  For most of my life it was a giant waste of time, a scheduling nightmare done out of necessity.  I deliberately picked a career that didn’t require a polished look until I hit managerial status.   But a flexible schedule and a late need to dress and act like an adult (staved off until over 40) finally led me to appreciate the intangible joys of a salon, a real salon.

It is to be fussed over.

For one hour, I get an entire staff dedicated to making me feel good about myself.  The shampooist massages conditioner into my hair, and I can almost feel the tenseness wash down the drain with the rinse water.  As my stylist runs her hands through my hair we chat.  About nothing at all.  The weather.  The construction on the highway.  My child’s new school.  The song playing on the satellite radio feed.  They dress my hair with fantastic smells.   They bring me coffee and bottled water.  They touch up my makeup when I am done.  No pressure, no demands.

I pay for a premium salon, but believe me, for that hour it’s a bargain.  It’s a far sight less than I would pay a therapist and I come out feeling 100X better and my mascara is intact.  I tip well – REALLY well.

It’s something my factory-working grandmother didn’t need an office and a college degree to figure out.

I think, next week, I will schedule that manicure.

And maybe buy a couple satin pillowcases.