“Um, are you serious,” I stutter as I pull the black band out of my hair and plop into Jill’s salon seat. 

“And you know what’s worse,” she sours my scalp for the grays I tell her are sprouting up, “it happens all the time.”

Jill is my hairstylist, but she’s also one of my good friends.  We met years ago after my husband forced me to have dinner with her and her husband.

“You’ll love her,” he pleaded after he randomly ran into Jill at the salon she worked at while getting his haircut one afternoon.  We had just moved from Portland to Kansas City and David really wanted me to find some friends.

“There’s no way I’m doing that,” I say after my husband revealed how he and Jill knew each other.  As it turns out, his super serious college ex-girlfriend was best friends with her.

“But you’ll love her, I promise,” David pleaded.  “You two have so much in common.”

‘Yeah, right,’ I thought, but eventually, he convinced me to go out to dinner with them.  And he was right.  I loved her.  And the rest, as they say, is history. 

But you know the best part about being friends with a hairstylist: all  the awesome stories.  And the one she was now telling me was no exception.

“It happens all the time,” I repeat like a parrot.  That’s what I do when something stuns me.  My husband made me aware of that fun little fact years ago.

“All the time,” she says again.

I saw the woman Jill was working on when I walked into the salon and sat in the lobby.  I thought the young lady had beautiful, long locks and I watched as Jill curled and styled, curled and styled, and curled and styled – this lady had a lot of hair.  A lot.  And about 20 minutes later, I heard her client say something about not being able to pay. 

‘I must not have heard that right,’ I think to myself as the lady pushes pass me and out the door with her hair swinging perfectly behind her.

Jill smiles at me and asks if I’m ready.  “I’m ready,” I say.  “You did such a good job on that woman’s hair.  It was so pretty.”

“Yeah, but did you hear what happened,” she whispers.

“No.  What happened,” I whisper back.

“That lady didn’t pay.  After I was finished with her hair, she told me she didn’t have any money and wondered if she could send me a check,” she says.  “And you know what?   I’ll never see that money.  Never.”

“Do you know her?  Is she a regular client of yours,” I asked.

“No,” Jill growls.  “I don’t know her.  She’s not a client.”

“Um, are you serious,” I say for the second time.

“I’m so serious,” she says.

And that’s the one about the girl who stiffed my hairstylist.