When Free Isn't Really Free

Free is my favorite word.  Love the word free.  Love it!  If something is free, I'm there.  One freebie I got while pregnant was the Arkansas Healthy Baby Book from the Arkansas Department of Health.  It's a book filled with prenatal information, but it also has some high dollar coupons that are validated at each prenatal and postnatal doctor's appointment.  I've been impressed by the value of the coupons in the book, so when I saw a free haircut coupon I was THRILLED!!!!  I made my appointment with the intentions of making a MAJOR cut. 

Here are the before pictures:

My coupon was to a "House of Beauty" here in Fort Smith.  My husband lovingly agreed to drop me off & watch E while I got my day of beauty and pampering. When we rolled in to the parking lot my anxiety level increased as I looked at the dilapidated sign of the shop, but seeing as the other coupons in the book were fabulous, surely this place was wonderful too right?  With great hope I kissed my family bye and opened the door.  Oh. My. Golly...this place was horrible.  Wood paneling, kitchy magazine clipping tapped on every available wall space, dust covered Red Hat figurines graced the numerous shelves.  I knew I was in trouble.  

I was greeted by a grandma like woman a seriously teased out bouffant hair do and more makeup that Mimi from the Drew Carey show.  Imagine her for the rest of the story:

Against my better judgment (and because I can't say no) I sat down.  She pulled out a broken brush, teased out my hair and proceeded to cut my hair.  This was perhaps one of the shortest haircuts of my life, lasting all of about five minutes.  Behold Mimi's handiwork: 

A close up of the jig jagged handi-work.

Needless to say, this was a completely unacceptable hair cut.  Had I been planning to keep my hair I would have been truly upset.  Fortunately, I had planned on donating my hair to Locks of Love so I didn't lose any sleep over my day o' beauty fiasco.

Today I go a REAL haircut by an actual PROFESSIONAL.  Here are the results:

And here is what was hacked off:

The actual cost of my "free haircut" was as follows:

$2 pity tip @ Mimi's House of Disastrous Hair Horror's
$20 actual haircut
$12 hair product
$8 tip in extreme gratitude for having presentable hair

But it was alllll worth feeling pretty for an afternoon.  I felt pretty, oh so pretty today.  It was nice.