Suzanne Harrington: Life is short and now, thankfully, so is my hair

Irish Examiner journalist, Suzanne Harrington at home in Brighton

The two great phobias of my life are spiders and hairdressers.

Mostly I manage to avoid both by not living in Australia and doing my own hair, but the day before heading to a Thai national park with its very own unique species of tarantula, I find myself sitting in a chair in a brightly lit salon with someone standing behind me asking me what I want.

This is phobia bingo.

To not be here, is what I almost say before my demeanour auto-adjusts into a kind of abject people-pleasing mode which seems to happen when sitting in front of a mirror being asked difficult questions by someone holding a scissors.

Just a trim, I whisper. Actually, the truth of it is that I want to shave my head like Britney as part of a menopause downsizing mission to get rid of anything that needs my care.

The problem is, if I go bald my son says that my partner will cry. He has no evidence of this, just a spidey-sense.

Last time I was at the hairdressers, the stylist mistook my silence for empathy as they talked, unfiltered, about their ADHD, PTSD and OCD for an hour straight while giving me the haircut they wanted.

Afterwards, determined to never again be mistaken for a therapist unless they were paying me and not the other way around, I went to Boots and bought a hairdresser scissors.

How hard can it be, I thought, as I periodically hacked away in the bathroom.

Quite hard, it turns out. If not actually impossible. Cut your own hair for long enough and you end up looking like Self-Harming Barbie.

But today, this hairdresser has his own spidey-sense. He intuits that I want to go bald, but lack the courage.

That I don’t own a hair dryer, or know my wax from my serum from my mousse, or have any desire to. Life is short. When he is finished with me, so is my hair.

Not Sinead O’Connor short, not even Judi Dench short, but naked neck short. Hopefully not crying-partner short.

I leave the salon feeling light as a shorn sheep, clutching a tin of something called putty.

I have been maintenance-briefed via a lo-tech tutorial how to zhuzh it through hair using fingers, no comb required.

I also leave with a a well-meaning suggestion to get my hair coloured professionally instead of doing it over the bathroom sink with rubber gloves and a toothbrush, but I ignore this.

No need to change the habit of a lifetime.

Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but getting your hair coloured professionally costs about the same as long-haul travel.

And so to face my other great phobia, the Kaeng Krachan tarantula. Not literally face. Apparently they are very shy, and have no desire to hang out, plus they live in the jungle, rather than under tourists’ pillows.

Which is a relief — the last thing you’d want to meet would be an extrovert tarantula, keen to get to know you. I will, however, remain on high alert, ready to lob a hefty tin of hair putty at anything that scuttles. Even if it’s the size of a dinner plate.