The trauma of Haircuts

Last week, on very short notice, we needed to go to my brother's church for Teagan's baby dedication. I decided Ian's hair was a bit unruly and I wanted just a trim. His hair has been an item of dissension in our house in that I say (within reason) he should have a say and Ryan says it should be short. From my perspective, Ian has some very big shoes to fill. He has Owen's old toys, some of Owen's old clothes, we affectionately call him OJ (Owen junior). However, he does not share Owen's distaste of grooming. Owen likes his hair in a crew cut year round because of its low maintenance factor. So, based on a few agreements (can't be in his eyes, not below his collar) we have decided to let Ian be the hair guide. So, like I said, we were going to this church where there would be lots of people I hadn't seen in years, and few of them had seen all my children, I wanted his hair to at least looked groomed. I had been keeping his bangs trimmed but the back was getting a little unruly. Ryan decided he needed a haircut as well so the three of us set off. (I didn't trust Ryan to take him alone!) We went to the local "beside the grocery store" type hair place. It was sort of crowded but we put our name on the list and waited. They called Ian first. I was already deciding I was a little unsure about this lady. First of all, she looked at Ian like he had the plague, she looked like her face would crack if she tried to smile and she looked at me like I was speaking another language when I was telling her what we wanted. I wanted to take him out of the chair and run. He was looking at me with "don't you dare leave me eyes." So she starts to cut and cut and cut. She gets finished, Ian literally jumps out of the chair. We are standing over waiting for Ryan to get done and I am examining his hair thinking, "I cannot believe we have to pay for this and I wonder if I am going to be able to fix it or am I going to have to take him someplace else, is he going to have to end up with a short do anyway." The lady can tell I am not pleased. She comes over and messes with his hair again commenting on his "natural curl" making it harder to style. It wasn't harder to style until she cut it CROOKED! This girl (about 19) got in the chair after Ian. She had been waiting in the lobby about 25-30 minutes. She was trying to explain to the lady what she wanted when the lady louder than necessary says "I hear what you are saying but it is not clear what you want me to do." I was undecided as to whether I wanted to tell the girl to run or tell the lady she needed to take a break. Ryan was giving me his "stay out of it, be nice, hurry let's go" look. So, we paid and left. Then I had to come home and do what I could to fix it. I still don't like it nearly a week later. We have finally gotten most of it even but if I had wanted to chop on it myself, I could have saved the $11. Ryan has decided Ian can no longer go to the corner shop, he needs a "stylist". I thought that is what they all claim to be. I have decided that getting your haircut is like playing the lottery. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, big time!