Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Mexinese

Last year, after assuring my parents that it was nothing related to gangs or drugs, I was allowed to let my hair grow into a large round of frizzy mass, also known as an afro. Much to the surprise of my classmates, the sheer size of my hair facilitated the carriage of several curious items, including pencils, saxophone reeds, and those plastic spoons they hand out at the cafeteria.
This summer, my hair grew out once again to a size comparable to that of last year. My parents were determined to have it cut. I didn't mind, however. It was getting to be quite a hassle. Even resting my head on a pillow in a comfortable manner proved to be a challenge every night.
So I walked down to that SuperCuts place on park street. The Chinese woman at the counter directed me to another lady at one of the chairs.

"I nee yo name, sa," she chirped.
I started to give her my name when she interrupted me.
"That lady ova dea take ca of you."
So I figured that she didn't need my name and I began to walk towards the chair.
"Wai Wai, sa, I nee yo name furs. Ha Ha Ha."
I started to give her my name again.
"Ova dea. She cut yo ha."
She was beginning to make me angry. People were beginning to laugh, so I couldn't figure out if it was me that was doing something wrong. Anyway, I eventually managed to give her my name.

The lady that was cutting my hair, whom we will now refer to as Mrs. Mexinese (for reasons which will promptly be clarified), was about the strangest shaped person I'd ever seen before in my life. Her head and torso, combined, formed a triangle, with a large magnitude of blubber hanging about at the base. She wore enough mascara to have the appearance of a raccoon and also defy my race-determining skills.

"Can you cut it down to about 2 inches on the top and an inch on the sides and the back?" I asked.
There was no response.
"Can you --"
"Ya, I do tha."
She sprayed about 10 gallons of water onto my head over a period of 15 minutes. Then she went kung fu on my hair with a pair of scissors and a buzzer.

"Nathalie, How many cup coffee you drink today?" she asked another barbress.
"I drunk fo," said Natalie.
"Ha Ha Ha."
They all laughed the same way. I had decided by then that she was also Chinese. But in the end, my reasoning proved false.

"You won me to put gel in yo ha?" she asked.
"No," I replied.
"You won gel?" she asked again. Apparently she hadn't heard me.
"No, no, I don't want gel," I said.
"I put gel."
She opened the bottle and slathered a copious amount of cold sludge onto my head.
I was shocked.
Then she took out one of those circular hair brushes, with the plastic band that straps around your hand, and pressed it into my skull and dragged it back to the base of my neck. She repeated this until all that was left of my hair was slickly pulled back. Half of my shock was comprised of the pain, the other half was due to the fact that I probably looked like the dark version of Malfoy from Harry Potter.

As if I wasn't in enough horror, she started to talk in freakin Spanish to somebody. Freakin' Spanish. She was Mexican. I'd never heard a Mexican person talk like that. What was funny, though, was when I heard her say "Esto nino de la india..." in a sentence, the rest of which my poor Spanish skills were unable to translate. She was talking about me.

Well, I thanked Mrs. Mexinese and paid the $14. I also vowed never to cut my hair SuperCuts again.

# posted by PlanetRandom | 2:43 PM | 4 comments