Conversation with my trans*stylist: Malfunctioning blowdryer.

So the Latin@-American trans*stylist who does my hair got chatty towards the end of my haircut session the other week.

First, when the new masseuse got on shift, he was like "Hi," to her, and then was like, "Good morning, Sir," to me.

"Sir?", she was like, as soon as he went away.

"What?", I was like.  "You know, I'm old enough to be a 'Sir'."

"I know that," she was like, "But I don't think of you as 'sir', I think of you as [my first name]!"

Later, after a long pause in the conversation, she confessed that she had been thinking about her blowdryer, which malfunctioned the other week and started to spark off the handle while she was using it during the middle of an appointment.

"Luckily the person was turned the other way," she was like.

She then said that she had been procrastinating on contacting the company since it had a lifetime warranty, and that it also had brought back horrible memories from when she was a kid, how she once got electrocuted by biting into an extension cord while trying to unplug a fan.

"Really?", I was like.

"Yeah," she was like, "They say if I wasn't chewing gum, I wouldn't have made it.  Chewing gum saved my life, it took some of the current and melted in my mouth."

I then asked her why she was biting into a fan's extension cord anyway.

"To unplug it," she was like.

I then asked her why she chose to bite into the fan's extension cord in order to unplug it.

"Because the cord wouldn't come out," she was like.

"And how old were you?", I was like.

"Six or seven," she was like, to which I said I was happy, b/c for a second there I thought she was going to say thirteen or fourteen or something.

"My sister was sick and needed some air, and my mom was yelling at me to unplug the fan for her," she then explained.

"Oh," I was like.

She then said that she remembers seeing a lot of colors and saying her sister's name a lot, but everyone else said that she did nothing but yell one solid scream until they unplugged it.

At that point, she said she felt fine, but the ambulance was already called, and they were all saying that she should go.

At the hospital, she finally looked in a mirror, and there was a big black circle on her mouth.

"No shit," I was like.

Then, after some explaining, it turns out that it wasn't her entire mouth charred all around, but rather just a black circle at the edge.

"That's why I have a scar right here," she said, pointing to the edge of her mouth at the lips, where a little black circle used to be, presumably.

"I used to be so embarrassed back in school," she was like, "And the other kids would try to be nice to me, and be like, 'Oh, I get those sometimes in the winter too,' and I'd have to say it wasn't like that at all!"

She then also said that when her blowdryer started sparking the other day, she insisted that the (female) (Japanese) owner unplug it for her.

"And did you tell her it was malfunctioning?", I was like.

"No," she was like.