After I tell this story, the guaranteed question that follows is: “You didn’t tip her, did you?”

“Yes,” I reply, ashamed of myself. “She needed the money and she was going through some rough times. Maybe she was depressed or drinking …”

I stop the justifications. Why bother? In the minds of anyone rational, this is just another example Book-Smart Lorna having absolutely no common sense. I am blessed/cursed with an uncommon sense in which rationality doesn’t just take a back seat, it’s not even in the vehicle.

Want to hear the story? Sure you do.

K was my hairdresser. She ran her small business out of her home, which had a decent salon set-up attached to it. Her trouble began when her husband, a prison guard, got arrested for something lewd that involved drugs and a minor. She left him and her salon (but not her profession) behind.

Being a woman of true grit and absurdity, K rented a double-wide trailer and created a make-shift hair salon in the middle of it. She called her former clients and enthusiastically assured us that she could provide all services as before, only in a more “homey” setting. I believed her. I also believe that goodness will prevail, kindness matters, and .

This is where my trouble started.

I made an appointment for a perm, something she had done for me before with great results. It was a Saturday afternoon. K welcomed me in. I never saw the inside of her previous home, but her current residence was a wreck. I know there was furniture because all kinds of junk was piled on top of various things that had either metal or wooden legs.

I should have had the presence of mind to tell her an emergency had just come up and escaped without rescheduling. But no. I pretended that I hadn’t just walked into a hoarder’s recently condemned trailer.

She must have noticed that my smile melted into something resembling a thin crack in the foundation of my expectations for the afternoon. “Don’t worry,” she assured me, “I’ve been so busy with clients, I haven’t had time to unpack and tidy up.” I nodded. Yeah, right, I said to myself. Those boxes exploded years ago, and you’ve only been here a few months.

“Lets get that hair permed!” K wisked my coat off me and threw it on top of a pile of other clothes, probably dirty laundry. “I’ve got a party to go to tonight.”

“Oh, a party?” I had two reasons for asking the question. I was genuinely interested, and I hoped the timing of my appointment wouldn’t interfere with her party preparations. K was what I would call a Wannabe Glamour-Puss. Even though she was short, chubby, and not-so-fair of face, she made up for what she thought she lacked with all manners of

I sat at her kitchen table covered with papers, dishes, and trays of hair styling paraphernalia. My chair was a regular kitchen chair. Homey. She rolled my hair in 943 perm rollers, squirted the vile-smelling chemical compounds all over my head, and set a kitchen timer she found under a pile of rubble. Then she proceeded to apply fingernail polish to her stunningly long nails while phoning a friend.

The timer dinged. K kept talking and blowing on her nails. My scalp began to tingle. “Um, K, the timer went off.”

“It’s okay, a few more minutes won’t hurt a thing.”

10 minutes later, “Ah, K, my head is starting to burn.”

She sighed. “I’ve got a client. Sorry. I’ll have to call you back.” Then she turned to me. “Okay, time to rinse.”

The kitchen sink, in which the rinse was supposed to happen, was filled with dirty dishes. K said, “Would you mind clearing the sink? I don’t think my nails are completely dry.” By this time the chemicals were seeping into my brain. I washed her damned dishes and rinsed my own head just to save myself.

K applied another chemical to my rollered-head–a relaxer. At this point in the process I was supposed to sit under a dome-dryer for the relaxer to work on my hair. Her dome-dryer didn’t work and she couldn’t find a blow dryer. Lucky for me, her double-wide trailer had a forced-hot-air heating system. Unlucky for me the heating vents were on the floor–the dirty floor, on which I had to lie down with my head as close to the vent as possible (but only when the furnace kicked on). The only other way to dry my rolled-up hair would be to joy ride in a convertible, but it was nearly freezing and I’m not a top-down kinda gal.

Drying curled up hair using an intermittent heating vent takes a while; so K had time to apply another coat of nail polish and finish her phone call. This meant that she had gorgeous nails and was caught up on all the gossip. I did the 2nd rinse, which was fairly easy because all I had to do was remove the coffee mug she had put in the sink while I was prone on her floor wondering what manner of filth was being blown into my hair.

With the speed and dexterity of anyone born a Millennial and after doing anything on a mobile devise, she extracted the rollers from my still-damp. Why the rush? She had a party to go to and this appointment had taken too long! Because my hair was still wet and she was in hyperdrive, there was a whole lot of pulling (K), wincing (me), and muttering (K) going on. She remarked, “Oh, shit! I ruined a nail.” Her tone indicated, “Oh, shit! You ruined my nail.” For one of the first times in my life, I didn’t feel guilty.

She managed to trim my hair, but I passed on having her style it.

I had time to think while lying in the floor waiting for my hair to dry. Would K charge me for this fiasco? Surely not. What am I doing here? I could’ve stayed on that floor until my hair was dryer than an Arizona summer and not be able to crack the surface of that mystery.

She charged me full price for the perm. And your question would be,”You didn’t tip her, did you?”

Yup.

At least I never went back.