Do NOT make the hair stylist cry.

I adore my hair stylist. She listens, so attentively, to my convoluted descriptions of the cut I want, my jumbled explanations of hair color and offers head massages and shoulder massages with each cut and color. If it didn’t sound so creepy, I’d have to say I LOVE her. I truly do.

I will begin this little retelling with a caveat - my explanation was probably more convoluted than usual, saying make this short and keep that long, a bit off here but not too much, OH! and the bangs, let’s do something jazzy with those! She ooh’ed and ahh’ed and pushed my hair up in crazy bumps and pulled it out to the sides, standing behind me while we both gazed into the mirror. I could tell she knew exactly what I wanted. Or not.

We skipped the color - no time. She did a deep cleaning and we giggled about those crazy bubbles like soda carbonation on my head, washing away the soap scum and conditioner residue. Like a couple of high school girls, tee hee hee! Back to the seat - no tea or water for me- and she dropped the bomb. Pregnant. Four months. Oy. Not the kind of thing you want to hear.

I imagine most of her clients asked about maternity leave, for their own selfish and vane reasons. As did I. Doesn’t she realize my hair grows like gang-busters? She better leave junior at home and do something about these wirey grays, was my first thought but instead I said, “How exciting! I’m so happy for you!” And I was. Sincerely!

Apparently my explanation wasn’t clear and she went wild. Hack, chop, hackity, whack. I bit my tongue. The woman was man-handling sheers and hormonal. So I sat quietly, smiling. Wow. Chunks of hair fell to her feet. She went to town with the blow-dryer and puffed and poofed and sprayed and curled and voila! I looked like an 80’s rocker. Not so good. My lovely stylist gushed, “Oh my goodness! It’s my favorite cut so far!! Don’t you love it!” And all I could say was, “Wow!”

Hair grows. The layers, too short to put in a ponytail, will grow. And in the big scheme of things, what’s hair compared to a baby. In other words, a crazy haircut to make her happy is good for the baby, so who am I to complain. I was sure to tell her on the way out that I loved the cut and she looked beautiful and I couldn’t wait to see her before her maternity leave- which was true. At least the last two things.

On the drive home, I recalled a time when I stood in a Trader Joe’s weeping, looking like I was eleven months pregnant, because the clerk told me they were all out of butternut squash raviolis. And I remembered why a little fib is fine to keep a pregnant woman happy - she’s in the midst of a miracle, doing the most important and amazing job in the world.

Hail to all the beautiful pregnant women!