The salon grandma goes to

When Abigail was young, her grandmother would always take her to the hair salon with her. The young girl would watch as her grandmother would get a trim from an equally elderly barber lady. She always awed at the result of the trimming. Her grandmother looked really beautiful with her short hair all trimmed up.

Abigail would always ask to have her hair done by the ladies at the salon but each time, her grandma wouldn’t allow it. Upon being asked why, Abigail’s grandmother said,”Wait until your fourteenth birthday, you’re too young now”

Years went by and Abigail waited impatiently. When she did turn fourteen, Abigail wanted her birthday party to be at her grandma’s house. When the festivities died down, Abigail grabbed her grandmother by the arm and begged her to go the hair salon. Her grandmother nodded and off they went.

The doors to the salon were almost thrown open as Abigail was ecstatic. An elderly woman looked on with a pleased smile as the child drug her grandmother up to the front desk.

”She couldn’t wait for this”,the grandma of Abigail smiled shyly but pleasantly,”She really wants the haircut”

”I never thought I would live to see the day”,the barber lady her chin in the palm of her hand,”It’s basically just regulars we get in here nowadays. But it’s always nice to have a new customer come in”

With that, the woman invited Abigail and her grandmother back to her chair. Abigail eagerly sat in the chair. The barber lady swung a blue-striped cape around Abigail’s body and secured it around her neck.

”Alrighty”,the woman smiled warmly at Abigail as the girl watched her from the reflection in the mirror in front of her,”Since you’re a new customer, let’s give that type of cut”

Everything seemed to come to a standstill as Abigail stopped fidgeting in the chair, looking at the barber woman in confusion,”Don’t I get to choose my haircut?”Abigail asked.

”Oh, honey”,her grandmother replied,”When I first came here, I couldn’t choose the haircut I wanted”

”Quite right”,the barber lady nodded,”My mother was a genius for inventing the rule that has governed this salon for half a century”

”What rule?”Abigail looked at her grandmother then at the barberette who was grabbing the clippers from a drawer.

Before anyone said anything, a pop sounded throughout the salon and a buzzing followed.

“My mother first took me here in the sixties”,Abigail’s grandmother reminisced as the barber tucked a loose piece of brunette hair behind Abigail’s ear,”The place was different back then but the rules haven’t changed a bit. My mom came into the shop with heads of long, brunette hair and afterwards, we left the salon with smooth, hairless scalps. It was a big change for my father but he grew to tolerate my mother and I having no hair. Mother continued to have her head shaved til the day she died but I still wanted some hair to play with”

As her grandmother gave her story a conclusion, Abigail looked at herself in the mirror. Half of her hair was gone. There was nothing but fine, short stubble that was barely visible. In the next fifteen minutes, Abigail’s head was completely naked.

The barber lady shut off the clippers and opened a cabinet just adjacent from the chair. Abigail started to touch the stubble that pricked her fingers as she felt them. A can of shaving cream was produced from the cabinet and the barber lady sprayed a dollop of it on the young lady’s head. Spreading it all over and then massaging it, the barber lady washed her hands in a nearby sink and wiped the cream off with a straight razor.

When the haircut was over, Abigail couldn’t recognize herself in the mirror. She still had on her dark blue dress with puffed sleeves but the girl staring back at her with no hair covering her head was surely not her. But her grandmother confirmed her fears by loving stroking her bare scalp. All her chocolate hair was now being swept up into a dust pan and thrown into a trash bin.

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