The Dreadlock Incident, Part 3.

If I was a superhero, I would have burst into flame and starting swirling around right then and there.  If I was a biblical character, I would have been Samson, pushing my strength into the walls and tearing the house down on both of us.  If I was Eminem, I would have written a murderous rap song and sold millions, for I think that my internal rage was producing what felt like an out of body experience.

My husband, whom I advised to wait one compromised week, did not wait T.W.E.N.T.Y.-F.O.U.R. hours to undo eleven hours of my work.

Why, I asked, didn’t he wait to wash his hair?

He wanted to feel clean.

Why did he shampoo his hair even though I had explained that that was bad for his dreads?

(*Brace yourself.  It’s bad enough that his dreads got shampooed.  But, believe it or not, it gets much worse.*)

Someone told him he could.

Who?

Another hairstylist.

ANOTHER?  Hairstylist?

Yes, he went to a salon that he assumed knew more about dreadlocks than I did.  He asked them if it’d be all right if he washed his hair.  Not only did they grant permission, but they also sold him their awful shampoo and their dreadlock-maintaining products.

Let’s pause briefly to peel back the layers of this grave offense.

• I am a published hairstylist.
• At that time I had been a hairstylist for 7+ years.
• I receive continuing education at least twice a year, sometimes three times.
• I had stopped taking new clients because the demand for my time was so high.
• If all of those things weren’t true about me, STILL!  I’m a Squuuuuaaare Piece!  My brain comprehends the world in very specific detail, with a strict and unhealthy compulsion to execute everything to perfection.  (Hellooo?  Remember my Christmas with the candy canes?!)  Was I suddenly going to throw caution to the wind and be indifferent to the process of making dreads?  Do I even KNOW how to be careless?!

So, wait.  He went to another salon and asked another stylist if the advice he had been given was correct?  Then he trusted them, purchased their products and washed his hair?

Um, excuse me, did I not just USE my own professional, appropriate dreadlock-maintaining products for eleven hours to physically create the dreadlocks the day before?  Was I missing an important tub of Jamaican-packaged goo for maintenance now?

What had occurred as a result of Brian’s shampooing was that his hair had loosened, swollen and frizzed from his roots to his ends.  It.  Looked.  Awful.

Immediately I began calculating how much more time I’d have to invest to salvage this situation.

Four hours, easy.

That night I went to bed an angry little hornet.

But do ya remember my second bit of advice?  The part about wearing a bandana to protect his dreads?

Yeah, Brian didn’t see the point in that either.

The next day I came home to my frizzy-dreaded husband with everything from the great outdoors embedded in his hair.  To review: he’s a landscaper.  As if I were a monkey picking bugs off of my mate, I had to pick twigs and leaf bits out of his hair.  The more I got my fingers in there, the madder I got.

After seeing the ramifications of leaving his dreads exposed to the elements, Brian agreed that they needed some protection.  But did he agree to wear a bandana as I advised?  Of course not.  No, instead Brian crammed that stupid, little baseball cap onto his super-sized, dreadlocked head.  Have you ever seen a man with dreadlocks and a typical baseball cap?

NoOoOo?

That’s ’cause the two make about as much sense as high heels on an ostrich.

Unfortunately for Brian’s dreads, where there’s a will, there’s a way.  So when Brian slid that tight baseball cap onto his head, he simultaneously was sliding his dreadlocks further away from his scalp.  If the dreadlocks had been tightening appropriately, my fingers would have been prevented from sliding through his hair and onto his scalp for all the tangles that were in the way.  As it was, the dreadlock tangles had loosened SO much that I could easily slip my fingers in at the roots and place them on his scalp, no problem.  Um, except that IS a problem.

With every passing day my husband’s dreadlocks grew looser and looser, frizzier and frizzier.  Brian would NOT stop shampooing his hair!  As a hairstylist, I was horrified at how this reflected on me.  If I’m being brutally honest, for three weeks I could hardly hold an innocent conversation with my husband, face to face, without getting angry at the sight of him.

And so I washed my hands of it.

One day Brian asked me if I thought it’d be all right for him to wash his hair.

Me, “I don’t care.  I don’t care what you do to your dreadlocks.  I’m not telling you what to do with them anymore.  You can do whatever you want with them.  If you wanna shampoo, then shampoo.”

Brian got nervous.

And the dreadlocks got worse.

To be continued…