Why it’s a good idea to speak German before going to a German hairdresser:

It was coming up to my birthday and my hair was getting long, which meant that unless I could find a hardware store (to get some gardening clippers or maybe a diamond-blade saw)…or alternatively a party with a theme like “Things that make you shout “kill it before it eats a baby!””, it was time to seek professional help.

The only thing standing in my way was my inability to communicate in German.

Kein Problem!

The chappy I stumbled upon at the only salon open on New Year’s Eve seemed very keen to help me out and kept repeating “beautiful. I make them beautiful.”

He seemed sincere.

In my broken German I said something along the lines of “shorter, but not too short.”

He indicated that he understood by moving his hand to show two centimetres.

I gave him the okay sign and he grabbed the scissors.

I began to worry when forty minutes later HE WOULDN’T STOP CUTTING MY HAIR.

He was like a crazed man, mumbling “beautiful” as he hacked and sliced.

Panic overcame me when he asked me to stand up, face my chair and rest my palms on the seat so that he could slice from a different angle.

And then HE KEPT CUTTING.

The entire process lasted more than an hour (and far more than two centimetres).

This is me on a good hair day: