Kick in the Head 03.03.16

Note: This installment is humanized. It’s a silly improv idea I thought of and I randomly decided to turn it into a little ficlet.

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Marlene sat at one of the chairs at a beauty shop, waiting for her stylist to come. She looked through a magazine that showed a bunch of women with various styles of hair, occasionally looking into the mirror and imagining her with a particular one.

“Ooh, girl! Look — at — you!” a woman said as she came to her side, fluffing her hair a bit. Her nametag read Tange and she had a thick, nasally Brooklyn accent. She had to be around seventy years old.

Taking the exclamation as a compliment, Marlene smiled. “Oh, thanks, I —”

“Just look at this rat’s nest on your head,” Tange continued. Marlene frowned and blinked in shock, completely caught off guard. “Donchu worry, honey. We’ll fix that right up for you. You’ll be beautiful in no time!”

“Um . . .” Marlene said, looking around awkwardly. “Thank you?”

“So, what style are you thinking?” she said, looking at her magazine over her shoulder.

“Well, I liked this one,” Marlene said, pointing to one of the women in the magazine.

Tange gasped and took the magazine to get a closer look. “Oh, that one’s beautiful!” She looked at Marlene and frowned. “But not on you. Pick something else,” she demanded, shoving the magazine back into Marlene’s hands.

Marlene, although a bit distraught by the woman’s attitude, just kept her opinions to herself and flipped through the magazine while Tange fiddled with her hair.

“You know, I had hair like that once, but the day I decided to perm it, I knew I was never going back. You ever thought about a perm?” she asked.

Marlene internally groaned. She didn’t care for perms, at least not on herself. Much too poofy for her taste. She put the magazine on the counter.

“You know,” she said, “I think I’ll wait a while longer before changing my hairstyle. I’ll just have you trim it for today.” She couldn’t wait to be done here so she could find a place with better service.

“You want me to trim it?” she asked, as if astonished by the request.

Marlene nodded. “Yes. That’s all I want.”

Tange sighed. “All right. I guess that’s better than doing nothing,” she said, looking at Marlene’s reflection distastefully. Marlene bit her tongue.

Marlene just tried to relax as Tange proceeded to trim her hair. She rambled on about her life story as she did so, but Marlene just closed her eyes and tuned her out, trying to focus on the music that played throughout the shop, muttering “mm-hm” every now and then to make it seem like she was paying attention.

Finally, Tange turned her around so she faced her reflection.

“There we go! Perfect,” she said, admiring what she labeled as her handiwork.

Marlene’s eyes widened as she took in her appearance. “Oh my God! What did you do to my hair!” she exclaimed, running her fingers through it. It was nowhere near her style, and definitely not what she’d asked for. It looked like something out of an eighties movie.

“Darling, I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You look fabulous,” Tange said, folding her arms.

“This is not what I asked for! What kind of stylist are you?” she asked, turning to Tange with her hands still on her hair.

“Stylist?” Tange inquired. “I’m not a stylist. I just work the cash register. You were the one to ask me to cut your hair. I just thought you didn’t really care about how you looked, if your hair didn’t make that obvious enough. That ain’t my fault.” She turned to walk away. “Some people can be so rude.”

Marlene stood there, a dumbfounded look on her face. What the actual hell!

At the last second, Tange turned back. “Oh, and by the way, your total’s forty-two fifty.”

[Words 634]