No Holds Barred

What is it about the hairdresser's chair that makes it like a confession?

Because I have embarked on the seemingly neverending project to dye my hair darker (note to viewers: going light is so much easier and sustainable), I do spend an extraordinary time with my color specialist, "Melissa." She is bubbly and fun-loving and always has entertaining drama in her life. However, I find myself telling her stories that ordinarily I wouldn't tell someone whose last name I barely know--nothing truly intimate but random things. As they come out of my mouth, I think "Why am I telling her that I have X-ray vision … still have my childhood teddy bear … dance naked to Shakira around my house on a regular basis?" Not really, but you get the picture. No topic is off limits.

It's not just Melissa either; I do the same thing with the woman who cuts my hair (different specialties call for different people). On my last 3 hour visit, I asked Melissa and Susan about it, and their response was that everyone tells the hair dressers incredible details about their lives. The person before me told Melissa about her miscarriage before she told her husband. Another colorist told me that she had a husband and wife as clients, and she saw them separately but on the same day recently. He told the colorist that he was planning on leaving the wife, and the wife told the colorist about this big vacation she was going to surprise him with on the 10 year anniversary. The person sitting next to me who telling her hair specialist about how she just had her first sexual encounter (it was her first time to the salon).

Maybe it's the great shampoo massage that totally relaxes me into my verbal diarrhea ... Maybe they put something in the herbal tea … I always leave a good tip because, well, she might tell someone of my love for the Gene Simmons reality show?