My first groupon.

Have you ever actually bought a Groupon?  I get emails often but until about 3 weeks ago, I just looked and passed.  Here's what changed for me.  I really needed a hair trim.  My girl left and is now working in Portland, Oregon so I figured I needed to suck it up and try to find someone I liked.  Not fun.  Once you have a gal you really like, it isn't easy trying to "replace" her.  *I miss you, Grace!!*  Gosh, especially when they're so dang cute and nice and you hang out with her because of it...sorry.  She was truly fab.

The Groupon that got me was only $25 for a hair cut, style and an oil treatment.  I thought, "How perfect!  I can just try it and it will be inexpensive!"  No harm there, right?

Wrong.  Here's my experience but let me first tell you what I expect from spending money, getting out of the house, being pampered, and just salons in general.

I do not treat myself to getting pampered often.  I mean, I have 4 kids and the budget is tight.  Maybe once a year.  Promise.  Anywho, it.is.a.big.deal. when I let myself go to a salon and get pampered.

When I get out and Andy is with the kids, I want that time to be spent wisely so that when I return, I have a renewed sense of strength, I feel taken care of and I am ready to take on another 10 months of mothering before I pamper myself again. ;)

I love the atmosphere in a salon.  I love the smell, the look and feel and I am truly obsessed with watching the stylists cut and color.  So much so that I have seriously questioned whether or not I should become a hair stylist myself.  My expectations are high and I want to feel like my hair is being worked well for the amount of hair I have and the length and style I want.

Are my expectations high?  Yes, but I am willing to pay the big bucks for it (ya know, once a year and I refuse to get my hair colored until the grays decided to grace me with their presence in which this will all change).

I want to have fun.  I want to feel pampered and I want people to take their time without taking up my whole day (or maybe that'd be amazing, too).

My experience was quite the opposite and I left wanting to bawl and cry my eyes out.  Like a baby who is lacking sleep...wait.  I am lacking sleep.

I walked in and I guess it was assumed that I knew to seat myself without being greeted.  Not even a hello from afar.  I had to ask the other guest what to do.  That's always fun. 

So, I sit down and probably 15 minutes later someone comes over and says, "BreAnna?"  It's okay, I know my name is hard to pronounce.  Ya know, Breena.  It has two "e's" which I guess can somehow be pronounce BreAnna.  ;)

I follow her to the sink.  She isn't saying anything.  She's just washing my hair.  I feel I need to let her know that I have a nursing baby and shouldn't be more than 1.5 hours because I really didn't know how long an oil treatment would take.  I was afraid to tell her because she wasn't very kind or so it seemed but I needed to for the sake of Bexley-girl.

So I gently say, "I just want to put a bug in your ear..." <--I know.  Clearly I was a little nervous to say something that stupid. "I have a nursing baby and if I could be no more than an hour and a half that would be perfect!"

She responded, "Okay, well I am working on another girl and the oil treatment should only take about 5 minutes but I'll need to keep it on longer because of working on her hair."  Me, "Okay."

I am under the heater-thing with the oil treatment for about 20 minutes.  It was relaxing and I had a good magazine but I was becoming really annoyed with the way I was being treated....like a number.

She asks me one question for which I will give her credit, "So how many kids do you have?" When I answered she said, "Aww."  And that was that!  I asked her if she had any kids and she said she had one and pointed to her picture.  That was it.  She took about 10 minutes, 10 MINUTES, PEOPLE to cut my hair!  Have you seen or touched my hair?  There's enough for 5 wigs!  I was so annoyed but kept on smiling.

She was drying my hair and I could tell she wanted to be done so I said, "You don't have to dry it as long as it's not dripping."

The last thing she said to me was, "Next time you schedule with me, make sure you have me block out more time since you have so much hair."

Sorry lady, there will NOT be a next time!!  Of course, I felt bad and left her a tip...I know!!!  I'm too nice (sometimes) hehehe

And there you have it, a TERRIBLE waist of my time and money...

The story doesn't end there, after telling two of some of my friends, they realized I was talking about the same place that they go to and LOVE but with another girl.  So, lesson learned was that just because you don't like one person working at a particular salon doesn't mean that all are bad?!  Oh, and groupons are not all good ;)

Have you ever bought a groupon?  What would you have done in this situation?  POLEASE!  Do share!