An Inch From the Bottom -1

Ever since the day a stylist at Andy’s Unisex Barber Shop said the words, “Let me do something wonderful with your hair,” I’ve had a deadly fear of getting my hair cut.
It was 1976, and I was a typically trendy teenager. When it came to my hair, I was eager to become a member of the Farrah Fawcett-Jones hairstyle club. We all wanted hair like Farrah, and my hair had the potential. It was long and thick with lots of natural curl. It had a variety of colors, different hues of brown, red and blonde, all mixed together. Never mind that I had as many zits as freckles on my face and a mouth full of braces. I had great hair. And the stylist at Andy’s was the first of a long string of one-haircut-stand beauticians to tell me so.
I remember sitting in her soft leather chair, watching in the mirror as she draped a giant plastic bib around my neck. A woman in the chair next to me was flipping frantically through magazines, complaining that none of the styles was right for her. “Everything looks too young,” she said. “Not everyone wants to look like one of Charlie’s Angels!”
I couldn’t believe the coincidence.
“So, what do you have in mind?” asked the stylist while she combed through my hair with her fingers. I felt her long, sharp nails massaging my scalp and was tempted to ask her just to scratch my head for a while.
“Can you layer it a little?” I asked. (There was no way I was going to mention the name “Farrah” with this frustrated woman next to me still tearing through magazines.)
“Are you sure you want to go with layers?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” I said. I was certain I needed a new look to make up for the rest of me.
And then the stylist said THE WORDS: “Why don’t you let me do something wonderful with your hair?” I had no idea that these words would soon become my personal Pavlovian prompter to say, “See you later,” find a brush and a rubber band, and organize my own follicles into a tight braid. Since I was trusting (and stupid), I nodded vigorously, excited about the possibility of being transformed into “something wonderful.”