Insanity and some scissors

Please don't ever ask me to cut your hair.  I don't mix well with scissors.  In fact, if you see me coming at you with a pair of scissors snipping in my hand, you'd better run.  I might even try to convince you that I can do a good job because at that time, I probably do think I can be successful cutting hair THIS TIME.  But, it never seems to fail- I always end up...embarrassed.

I remember when I was in my twenties and wore my hair in bangs.  I would try to trim the bangs myself so I could save some money.  I always started out with good intentions, which I still do, but the bangs would be uneven every time.  In order to even them up, I had to cut more and before I knew it, I barely had any bangs left.  I was in complete denial about my incapability.

One time a friend asked me to trim her hair while it was in a ponytail.  I tried to convince her to put it down, but she was adamant about having that ponytail (she wanted to still be able to put her hair in one).  Let me tell you, she had thick hair and all we had to use were dull as all get out scissors.  I had to work very hard to get those suckers to cut through her viscous hair; it sounded like I was sawing wood or something.  I started laughing hysterically, as she said carefully, "Laurie...what are you doing?"  Then she started laughing, too.  The whole thing sounded much worse than it was because her hair actually looked kind of cute all layered up.  She later sent me a clipping as a memento.

When I had Katie, I tried to trim her bangs, but gave up as soon as I admitted I had a problem cutting hair.  I did not want to mar my beautiful daughter's appearance.  Then the boys came along and I thought that surely I could snip around the edges successfully this time- boys don't care, right?  I even went to a beauty supply shop and bought some professional haircutting scissors, since it must be the scissors that were making the hair turn out the way it did.  Guess what?  The scissors weren't magical; I always end up having to take the boys for a haircut to fix Mommy's mess.  (Actually Pete is the one who has to take the boys because I am usually in complete denial over my fallacy). 

Andrew has been letting his hair grow out (it's the IN style for boys) and he really looks good with longer hair.  This morning he wanted to wear his bangs brushed down over his forehead instead of to the side like he usually does.  Well, the bangs were so long that they "tickled his eyeballs."  I'm sure you can guess what I did.  I lured him into the bathroom like I was Medusa or something, took out the scissors and began with the intent of just snipping away the eyeball ticklers.  Well, five minutes later, I had trimmed the whole front of his hair.  It was short and yes, I'll admit, crooked.  OUCH!  He is such a good sport and didn't say a word as I fixed it just so to cover up my mess.  I think Pete was more bothered about it than he was.  Maybe I should offer to take Andrew to the hairdresser this afternoon, you think?

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  Ahem...I guess I really do have a problem here.