FML: My New Haircut (true story)

One morning I woke up early to go work out before school. I ran a couple miles around the track before walking back to my house, which is located right behind the school in a teacher housing area. As I approached the compound, I saw my next door neighbors' dog Taniwah outside, the same dog that bit me 2 months ago, and he was unchained. I stopped in my tracks, we made eye contact... and then he came for me. I turned around and fled screaming for my life back towards the school as I heard the snarling dog closing in, and I had gone no further than maybe 20 yards before I felt his teeth scrape the back of my thigh. He didn't break the skin thankfully, but it stressed me out so badly that I burst into tears, and to make things worse there were a few students not too far away that were witnessing the entire event. Completely terrifying and mortifying.

Lee went to school that morning and told our coordinator that Taniwah had struck again. They came over to the house and talked to me about what had happened, and then the sub-director went over next door and spoke with our next door neighbors. Based on what I know about Thai culture and from other people's stories - one in particular about a person who secretly poisoned their neighbor's dog instead of complaining about it (something we have considered) - I knew that the neighbors would probably not be thrilled that we said something about the dog to the school. But seriously, I draw the line at personal safety.

Taniwah was nowhere to be seen the rest of the day, and I returned to school to teach my afternoon classes. One Thai teacher told me that she heard that he was taken away and locked up somewhere else. After school, Lee went out to get a snack, came back and told me that he had seen our neighbor at the store (we'll call her "M" here) and that she had barely acknowledged him. M is usually very friendly to us and speaks more English than most people in our town, so we had a suspicion that she was not pleased with us at this point.

That evening, it was time for my first Thailand haircut. I had been dreading it for weeks, but a pretty female Thai teacher with fabulous hair named Pi Earng told me where she got her hair cut, so I figured I'd just go to the same place and hope for the best. I opted not to bring a picture of a celeb like many of my American friends with successful Thailand haircuts have done here because I wanted to be adventurous... slash got a little lazy about looking for a picture. All i could think about as I walked to the town's main strip was man, this isn't going to be a very good day if i get a dog bite AND a bad haircut on the same day.

So I'm walking up to the area where Pi Earng had described the hair salon to be, but as I'm getting closer I'm seeing a kinda dingy place with one woman cutting someone's hair... I get to the door. The woman cutting hair looks at me, and suddenly I recognize who she is. It's my next door neighbor, M.

FML.


If you want to know what happened next:

Without a smile on her face, she says "You want haircut? Sit down." I nervously oblige, but all I can think is there is NO way I'm letting this woman cut my hair now. I'll dread my hair before that happens. I pull my glasses out of my purse and told her I needed to go get them adjusted down the street (truth), and that I'll be back (lie). As I leave and walk down to the optical shop, I pass by a really nice looking salon right next door and realize that this was the place I had originally been looking for. Damn. As I'm sitting and waiting for my glasses to be fixed, I call my friend Marianne... "dude, I have a real life FML going on right now... help."

Option 1: Let someone who I just offended that day use scissors on my head.
Option 2: Go to other salon to get my hair cut by someone else, but risk seriously offending my neighbor again.

"Steph... do NOT let that woman cut your hair."

I snuck into the other salon and got out with an okay haircut for 60 baht (2 US dollars). I've seen M 3 times since that day and she hasn't said hey to me once. I don't think she likes me anymore.


Taniwah, the ferocious beast... just kidding. I'm way too scared of Taniwah to try to take a picture of him. This is some random pup with shoes at a gas station.