I visited the Mall of Asia while I was in Manila. It's practically a city under one roof, with everything one needs to get by. There's the super- ahem, excuse me, the HYPERmarket for everything from food to shampoo, medical clinics, and boutiques after boutiques for everything else.
Speaking of shampoo, there are countless hair salons that advertise the best hair styles for both men and women.
Antie B told me that her daughter prefers David's Salon. Tia F told me that Miko's Mom is loyal to Istilo. So I picked this salon, just to have a point of reference for visiting folk like myself who just want to get their bangs trimmed up.
Ricky Reyes.
They have a person to wash and dry your hair, and someone else to cut and style it. The stylist, an effeminite young man from Cebu, I'll call him Ricky Reyes for convenience, ran his fingers briskly through my hair first. "Inday," a common title given to young ladies that loosely translates to 'miss', he said to me. "Your hair is so dry! How about a silk application to make it look slick and shiny?"
For the record, I have naturally stick straight, lustrous, long silky hair that my curly haired girlfriends envy. (The "lustrous, long silky" description was from a man, not gay.) In fact, my regular hair stylist is always impressed with how healthy and beautiful my hair is. I tell her "I don't blow dry, heat style, chemically alter, or use sytling products on my hair."
"No," I told Ricky Reyes.
He continued to run his fingers through my hair, doubtless to admire it. But instead of complimenting it, he added "Better yet, we can rebond your hair, get it even straighter than it is. You do have a slight wave in it, you know." This whole time he's looking at my hair.
*Um, my hair has been in a bun all day long. You think this might have something to do with the "slight wave" you're talking about?*
"No thanks," I replied.
With that, he left me quite abruptly, without so much as a I'll be right back, or hang tight while I tend to [whateveritisthatRickyReyesdoeswhenhegetsshotdownbyacustomerwithnaturallyhealthybeautifulhair...notthati'mboasting...].
Then I was led to the washbowls where a pretty lady washed my hair absent-mindedly.
I immediately had a dreaded feeling that I wasn't going to like my haircut.
That night, at home, I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror for half an hour. Unhappy.
The next morning I borrowed a pair of scissors from Auntie B.
The End.
