A Permanent Solution

We all remember our first perm...the anticipation and excitement of looking exactly like "that girl" we see at school mixed in with a little nerves---fear of walking out of the salon looking like a clown instead. But, we stick it out and allow our heads to be tortured in the name of beauty.

A couple of days ago my daughter got her first perm. She is in the middle of her 6th grade year and, like her, I got my first perm in the 6th grade too. Of course, my hair had just grown out from a Dorothy Hamill cut--but not by much because I walked out of the salon on the clown end of the spectrum. Needless to say I kept perming my hair until the middle of high school. At least my daughter's hair is all one length and falls just below her shoulders.

As she sat in the chair, as giddy as ever, it all came flooding back to me: my mother nearby and circling my chair--a woman well-experienced in the perm world. The pungent odor of the perm solution wafting all around me and covering everyone else in the salon--much like the scent of a skunk...it does not leave you once you've become victim to it. The long strip of cotton the stylist would wedge between my hairline and the extra tight rods...as if sealing my head with an O ring...a rubber seal that never really worked. She would then vanish to who knew where (though I know now it was off to a sectioned off lair where all kinds of goodies were kept). I can still remember sitting in that chair looking hideous in my tight perm rods housed inside a clear plastic bubble of a cap...as if I were a walking green house; the cold, yet burning liquid sneaking out from underneath the now soaked through strip of cotton. Do I dab at it? Do I let it drip? Do I wave my hands and try to get somebody's attention? Just when I thought I couldn't take the punishment any longer the stylist would emerge like Glinda the Good Witch and replace the cotton strip...and then, like Glinda, she would float away. And, finally, the time would come for a good rinse...relief at last...or so I thought. I don't think my neck has ever hurt as badly as it did when I was kid, lying atop my perm rods, in the crook of that hard as hell sink. But then...it was all worth it...this girl had curls.

Fast forward to my own daughter, now sitting in the chair. Her hair is as straight as a board (like mine) and the time has finally come. After an hour and a half the rods were removed and ... nothing. NO CURLS!
Right then and there my daughter's stylist said, "I'm re-doing this perm right now" (it was 7:00 at night). I told her thanks, but we could reschedule for another day/time. She insisted, saying, "If I was a girl who thought she was going to wake up in the morning with curls...then I would want curls!" What a woman!! The owner, who was walking out the door, purse in hand, turned right back around, set her purse down on the floor and offered to help. The stylist and the owner began working on my daughter in tandem...one on the left; the other on the right. I left the three of them alone and drove on home (I live about 5 miles down the road). my daughter's stylist lives a mile from us so she offered to bring my daughter home with her when she was finished. When I got the call it was well after 8:00 and I was out checking a hog trap with my husband, son, and a friend of mine and her son. We all jumped into our old army jeep and took off. It was cold outside and the moonlight was enough to light our way. We picked up my daughter and saw her smile before we saw her curls. In this day and age it is so nice to know there are still people who go the extra mile...because they remember what it was like to be a young girl.

There is something to be said about big hearted people working in a small town salon. A mother's thank you goes out to our stylist Karmia and owner Pam!