An eventful visit to the hairdresser

Have you ever had a day when you should have never got out of bed, felt like a total, absolute goose and worst of all know that it is all your own fault?

Well guess what? Today is that day!

Lately for a number of reasons, I have had a dose of the blues. You know the good old fashioned ones, more navy blue than duck egg blue.

So this morning, I rolled out of bed and decided that this was the day to do something about it.

I tried the doctor’s solution of the obligatory Valium, incidentally why is it that the docs tend to prescribe Valium for maturing women who go to them for advice. Anyway, I digress.

The happy pill was not working, so I decided to revert to the tried and tested female restorative, the almighty hairdresser’s.

You know the kind, not the cutting edge, stainless steel version where the superior assistants are straight out of Vogue, but the reliable kind, a bit shabby around the edges, where you get a cuppa as soon as you sit down and know that you are in for a good hour of gossip.

Well, initially all went according to plan, my hair was washed and the accompanying massage felt like all of my cares were being pummelled away. The cut and subsequent styling was perfect, and I looked like I was 10 years younger. Success!

Then I happily went to the register to pay with my credit card, and it was now that the wheels fell off the happy wagon.

I dutifully presented the card, and you guessed it, the dreaded declined message came up. This can’t be right, one thing I do get right is my bank balance.

So I asked, please present again. Again declined.

By this time the whole buzz in the salon had diminished to a whisper, everyone was waiting for the next move. The lady then had the presence of mind to check the expiry date on the card. 2010.

What, I had a closer look at it, and the light bulb went off, for some reason I had not thrown away the old card and in my rush to leave this morning had picked up the wrong one.

Only solution was to call home and ask my husband to bring the right one down, or better still ask him to transfer funds from a savings account to the general account and then I could pay by debit card.

This was not a good idea, I cannot remember the online bank password. So we revert to the original plan. He will drive the card to the hairdresser’s.

The silence in the salon is palpable, everyone is listening openly to the exchanges between husband and me. Every word is being stored for later discussion and dissection.

This is not good, we live in a quite small town where your business is everyone else’s business.

I know that when I go to my next craft meeting the subject will be raised. We really do not need a local paper here, the local grapevine beats it hands down.

Now the awkward part starts, waiting for the card to arrive. After half an hour, husband is still a no show, so I ring home,

He answers the phone. 

“Where the heck are you?”

“I was watching a show on telly when you rang and I want to see the end of it. It is only another 20 minutes”.

“If you don’t get into that car now and come here, you are going to be missing an awful lot of things you hold most dear.”

“OK calm down, I’m coming”

He had better or it won’t only be dinner he is missing out on.

So I go outside to wait for him so that he doesn’t need to find a park, waiting, waiting, waiting, finally I can see the longed for red car coming around the corner, and my gallant rescuer pulls in and shoves the card through the open window and calls out, “got to go, I can still catch the last few moments of the show”, and with that he disappears.

So I try not to look like I am slinking back into the salon, although it doesn’t quite come off, pass over the right card, and heave a huge sigh of relief when the green tick of approval comes up.

I am then cheerily informed by the hairdresser, that “really darling, you could have brought the money in tomorrow”. Help, somebody give me strength.

You know the worst part of it, it was all my own fault. Maybe I really do need another Valium.