The beauty of 'beauty' parlors

In the South, they never were--nor will they ever be--'salons.' They're beauty parlors.  Salon sounds just a tad, oh, stuffy and pretentious.

But call it what you will, we don't really go there in search of beauty.  In these chairs, there's therapy and conversation, shared dramas and shared recipes, women who feel secure in letting someone see them at their absolute worst, and yes, the hope that we'll leave looking at least respectable.

Here, you're among friends who don't care that you're sitting right there in public with Saran Wrap matted to a wet head or have a plastic cap tied securely under your chin with just enough hair sticking through tiny holes to make you look like a scurvy survivor.

Here, you can expose your ugly feet for a pedicure, you can burst into sobs five weeks after a hysterectomy and wail, "I'm never going to get better," and no one blinks an eye.  They've seen every mystery hair that sprouts on an aging, ever-sagging face.  They're tender with longstanding customers who arrive on walkers, unsteady and not quite sure they recognize old friends.  They discreetly disguise the thinning patches of once-thick tresses.

Sure, there's every known elixir for hair or face here, and we optimistically cart them home with us.  But that's only a cover for the real reason we keep standing appointments at the beauty parlor.

Their talents are with us through every passage.  The tense piano recitals, the magic of first proms, the graduations, engagements, weddings, and parties.  And there comes a day when you have to pick up the phone and ask, with tears in your voice, "Can you please do my mom's hair for her funeral?"  They'll go on a Sunday for that sad, final hairdo.

Especially then you realize the difference in a parlor and a salon.  One's an image-maker.  The other's with you right up until the end.