for the famous Hairbanger

Two events in the past week caused me to ponder the profession of hairbanging (or being a stylist, for those of the cosmopolitan persuasion) -- a viewing of "Steel Magnolias" with my 13-year-old daughter, and a trip to the local salon to get my son's hair cut.

I love the movie, smarmy as it is, mainly because of the Ouisa character, and also because it's set in Louisiana, the home of fabulous Cajun food and good times. I should have been born a Southern girl. I would've made a killer Southern librarian, all dried-up books and glasses and earnest discussions of Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote, while going hog-sausage-wild at night, hopped up on gumbo with extra hot sauce and gallons of planter's punch. Plus, my nails are ALWAYS done.

My goal in life is to become Ouisa Boudreaux. Rich, pushy, foul-mouthed, blunt, and sarcastic. I'm halfway there, but I'm not telling which half. Suffice to say I haven't gotten up the nerve to act as bitchy as I think.

The bitchiness would have come in handy as I was taking my son to get his hair cut. It is a chore I dread, because he is now 10 years old and is beginning to take himself very seriously. He loves to wear his hair long and shaggy, and it doesn't really get to me until it's grown down over his ears and neck and past his eyes so that he's always flipping it out of his face. The flip side of his ten-year-old-ness is that he hates taking showers or generally cleaning himself, so as he does his little boy stuff like jumping in creeks and throwing gravel at his friends he tends to come into the house looking like Bigfoot's midget brother. Chunks of dirt have fallen off his head before without his notice.

I made a deal with him that he could let his hair stay long until spring break was over, and then he'd have to get it cut. D-Day was yesterday. We grimly drove to the salon, one of those walk-in places (I KNOW, I KNOW) and a gnarly-looking guy with a ring in his nose and horrible teeth took my baby boy back to do the deed.

I told the guy, just take most of it off the sides and back. The bangs I can deal with, as he can usually manage not to get food or other effluvia stuck in them. But the sides and back were so long and shaggy they made him look like he'd lost his ears in a tragic earmuff accident. So the guy started cutting -- excuse me, HACKING. Once he cut off the first inch of hair there wasn't really anything I could say or do but hope he evened it out.

Ten minutes later, he's done. My son is red-faced and crying. The guy is very nice, but my son is having none of it. Even his older sister, the monster 13-year-old, is trying to tell him that he looks fine. He scowls his way out the door as I pay. All the stylists in the salon are looking at me and shaking their heads sadly, "uh uh uh, he gonna be in a bad mood allllll day now Mom....." as I brace myself for the emotional onslaught.

It comes with breathtaking fury. He is crying and moaning and telling me that he will NOT GO TO SCHOOL ever again, that he looks like a DORK, that it's HIS HAIR and why do I make him cut it when it's just fine when it's long, that everyone he knows will make fun of him and no he will NOT GO IN to the store while I shop, and when I force him to get out of the car he screams "I HATE YOU MOM!" The dagger has been unsheathed.

It's then that I wish I could be bitchy. Bitchy and blunt to the guy who cut his hair, so as to absolve myself of the blame, or at least bitchy enough to tell my son to shut up and deal with the haircut before I get out the razor and shave his head, or even a teensy bit bitchy enough to say "I hate you TOO" to my son. But I just can't. I will never be Ouisa Boudreaux.

Anyway, before the day was over, my son sidled up to me and put his arms around me. He said he was sorry. I told him I forgave him. He said "I love you Mom, I don't really hate you ever," and I assured him that I loved him too. Whew, drama over. But I'm never going back to gnarly nose-ring guy. Hmmmm, does anyone know a good hairbanger that makes house calls in Indiana?