Fantastic Sam’s

Worst haircut ever!
I went to Fantastic Sam’s because I just needed a trim and didn’t want to spend a whole bunch of money at a salon. Bad idea! I walked in and was the only customer. I asked for a simple trim and to keep the same look that I already had. She told me that I was being too vague and that she was going to just add in a bunch of layers to make it lighter.
The woman washed my hair but didn’t bother to completely rinse out all of the conditioner. She then proceeded to cut my hair while it was dripping wet. Did an incredibly choppy job. It seemed like she was just cutting chunks out of my hair. When she was done she told me to run my fingers through it to see if I liked it. It was still super wet so I didn’t really know if I liked it or not. But after running my fingers through it, a whole bunch of hair fell out as well. She then blow dried it out with cold air just to get out all the excess hair. The only trouble was that she had already taken off the apron so I just ended up with a bunch of hair on my body. I told her it was fine and then left. On the way home I kept shedding more and more hair. As soon as I did arrive home I took a shower to get the rest of the conditioner out, dried my hair and realized that I look like a man. It looks nothing like it did before and I’m going to have to grow it out again in order to get it done at a salon. Good thing my hair grows super fast, too bad this place completely messed it up.

So… Fantastic Sam’s is not very fantastic.
I’m probably the only person that didn’t know that.
But I just discovered it.
For 18 years the same lady cut my hair, out of her own salon. But then I moved. So now I’m branching out.
I don’t have difficult hair. It’s pretty short. Pretty simple.
And I’m pretty broke, so when I got a coupon for a haircut and shampoo for $ 8.99 I figured I didn’t have anything to lose, especially since Fantastic Sams is only 2 miles away.
I called to see if I needed an appointment or just walk in. They said I didn’t need an appointment, so that was cool.
I went.
And it was awful.
Everything.
Well, except the shampoo. That was pretty great.
And the price.
But everything else.
The place was clean enough, but just had a really third rate kinda vibe to it. There were only 2 ladies working. There was no one there to answer the phone (and they didn’t have a cordless phone, so anytime the phone rang one of the ladies had to stop cutting and walk all the way to the front).
The lady that cut my hair was totally obnoxious. One of the worst conversationalists I’ve ever encountered. She tried her best to make small talk, but mostly she just offered opinion after opinion. And every 2 minutes she threw in another pitch for me to buy their fine hair care products.
Halfway through my haircut, a guy came in upset. He said he got a haircut the day before and the lady had totally messed it up and he needed it fixed. He was a carney. Seriously. There’s a carnival just up the street. That was pretty cool.
Two or 3 more carneys came in as well. That was fun.
They did end up ‘fixing’ his haircut for free, so thats a good thing I guess.
She got done with my hair, and it looked nothing like what I had asked for or wanted. She didn’t say «how’s that?», just «ok, all done. I looked and she had hardly cut any length off. «Umm…can you please take some more off the top». She ignored me and kept talking about mousse. I repeated my question, and she got a little snippy, and said yet. Honestly, she got a bit snippy at least 4 times… the other times where when she asked me some assanine questions and i didn’t answer correctly. Seriously. Once she said «where do you work?» And I said «I substitute teach». She asked where, and i said at a preschool, and an alternative school. And she said, «no, where»? And i said closeby, and then she got pissed and said «no, what’s the name of the schools».
It was the most forced small talk ever.
She asked what radio station I listen to, and there was no way I was going to tell her KGSR, so i just said The BOB 103.5. And she said ‘no, it’s not 103.5, it’s 102.5. that’s a weird one, but people like different thing’.
I wasn’t going to argue with her. I didn’t want to talk to her at all.
She finally got done, and I was just ready to go.
As we walked to the cash register, she pulled 3 bottles of hair care products off the shelf, and started to ring me up.
I told her i wasn’t going to buy any hair care products.
She got sorta pissed.
When I went to pay, I gave her a $ 20, and they didn’t even have change for a $ 20.
Oh, and she made fun of me for wearing ripped jeans.
I shouldn’t have tipped her anything, but I did leave her a couple dollars.
She didn’t even say ‘thanks’ or ‘have a nice day’.
I got home and realized she hadn’t even cut my side burns at all.
What the heck…
It’s a pretty bad haircut.
Even though it was cheap, it probably wasn’t even worth it, because I’m gonna have to get another soon.
The end
********
ok. here’s how ridiculous I am. I went back. here’s the deal: after i trimmed my sideburns last time, it actually looked ok. And it grew out and looked ok too. So I had another coupon, and gave it another try.
the haircut was actually good this time.
the overall experience was still the same. i still felt dirty. they still tried to sell me things.
but i told them exactly what i wanted.
and it came out ok.
and it was cheap.
so I upped their rating by 1 star.