Like many others, I cut my own hair over the past year. I watched YouTube videos and gave it my best shot with results that were completely acceptable for quarantine purposes. But as my hair grew out from the last cut, it began to look more and more as if I’d sawed it off with a dull knife. So I reached out to the stylist I’d been seeing for years.

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In my text, I let her know my family and I were fully vaccinated and asked if she was now taking appointments. She replied, “I’ve been working all this time.” She went on to say that she no longer worked at the salon but was traveling to people’s homes or having them come to her home.

That response raised several red flags. But after taking another look at my hacked hair, I sent a text saying I’d be happy to have her come to my home. I also said that if she wasn’t vaccinated, I’d want us to both wear masks. Hours passed before she replied with an available appointment date/time. Nothing else. With great trepidation, I accepted the appointment for last Friday.

Three days later, I’m still gobsmacked by her attitude. She wore a mask . . . under her nose. When I greeted her and asked how she was doing she replied, “I’m fine” in a tone that suggested this whole silly global pandemic thing had been blown way out of proportion. Ugh. But I was committed, so we went out onto the patio to get started. And as she trimmed/cleaned up my bad cuts, I asked why she was no longer at the salon. She replied, “After COVID, I couldn’t go back.”

My immediate thought was, “You’ve got this all wrong, Tracy! She just didn’t want to be in an unsafe working environment which makes total sense.”

Then she went on to say, “I couldn’t take all the rules and regulations.”

Say what?! All I could think (as this woman wielded sharp scissors around my head) was that she was incredibly selfish. I mean, we’re up to nearly 600k dead people in the U.S. alone and her biggest issue was the rules and regulations?!

Did I say any of that to her? No. Do I regret not speaking up? Kinda, sorta. While people like that need to be called out, I don’t believe my words would make one bit of difference. Also? Sharp scissors.

I won’t be utilizing her services anymore. But the one good thing that came of our appointment was her response to the sight of my older-woman long hair: “So you’re not doing short hair anymore?” That comment got me to take a long, hard look at my appearance and I’ve decided I’m going back to short hair. I have an appointment for Wednesday at a new-to-me salon that enforces a whole bunch of COVID rules and regulations. I can’t wait.