There Are No Jews in Manchester

I rarely go to the salon. The past few years I've averaged 1-2 haircuts per year. I know, that's horrible. I go to the same girl because she gives me the "curly cut" only in the places I need it, for free. Well not free, but for the amount of a regular layered cut, not the special Ouidad method of "carving and slicing" that one needs to take out a small loan to cover when purchased regularly. I have major problem hair, officially. I have a How To Look Book that was written some time in the 1960's or '70's that tells young ladies how to carry themselves and take care of themselves so that they look good. There is a section on hair, and apparently, curly hair is considered "problem hair" that you should regularly see a stylist about and keep your hair cut very short or straighten it daily so no one has to witness the horror that is curly hair.

And freckles are a special kind of charm. I don't have freckles, but I was a little offended that freckles are charming while curly hair was given to me by the Devil.

Anyway, this post has nothing to do with my problem hair. It also has nothing to do with the fact that I'm at work right now and all of my Face Book notifications come to my work email, but I can't access Face Book at work, so the fact that I've received no less than 10 comment notifications about a photo someone posted of me in high school, yet I have no idea which photo this is, what I look like, or even worse, what I'm doing in it, is driving me completely crazy.

No. This post about my brow-waxing adventures earlier this week. What I started to say was that brow-waxing is a big deal for me because it's the only time I get "pampered". And by pampered I mean I get to lay down on a dirty chair, get hot wax poured dangerously close to my eyes only to have my skin ripped away quickly and harshly, sometimes leaving raw scabs in the vicinity of where my eyebrow should be.

On Monday the MIL was in town (and by "in town" I mean taking over my house) so I decided to take advantage of my semi-freedom to get my brows done since I hadn't touched them since before Thanksgiving. Yeah, they totally hate me at this salon. I get yelled at every single time I go, whether it's for a brow wax or my yearly hair weed whacking, for not keeping up with my appearance. Whatever.

Since I always schedule the brow thing at the last minute, I end up with a different person every time. This time, I was with Emily. I liked her right away. She spoke English, didn't have smoke breath, and didn't yell at me for neglecting my hair, skin and life. She started ripping away and we got to talking, but were interrupted when she had to excuse herself from the room to take a phone call from her husband.

About 2 minutes later, she re-entered my cell with tears streaming down her face, telling me she had a family emergency and had to go but someone would be in shortly to finish the job. I felt horrible for her and told her I hoped everything was ok.

Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, the door opened and Jen came in, bustling about, apologizing profusely for Emily's hasty departure and telling me it was obviously an emergency if she left me with wax on my face.

There was wax on my face??? This whole time???

Jen took a few minutes to get her act together, since she was all discombobulated, having been interrupted in the middle of a facial she was giving, to tend to me. Finally she settled down and got to work making me gorgeous, and started chatting.

We talked about kids and houses, and found out that she lives very close to me. I told her we were moving, and, at her request, listed the areas we were looking at. One of these areas is Manchester. She said that was a really nice area but far out. Then a moment later, she told me "There aren't any Jews in Manchester."

My response was, "Ok..."

I wasn't sure whether she meant that was a positive or negative. Either way, there was no way I was going there. This woman had hot wax on a stick mere millimeters away from my eye. I wasn't about to question anything she said.

She went on for a minute, then looked at me and said "You are Jewish, aren't you?"

To which I replied "No."

Long silence.

Then she apologized, saying I looked Jewish and that she just assumed. Apparently she was Jewish and felt that she was doing me a favor by warning her I was considering moving to a place where there might not be a lot of people...like me.

I recounted this event to my husband on the way home from the salon, and, feeling mischevious, wondered out loud what her reaction would have been had my initial response to her statement regarding the lack of Jews in Manchester had been "Good! That's why we're looking there!"

I probably wouldn't have any eyebrows or eyelashes right now.