Did I Nod Off and Become MacGyver? No, It Was BA

As a child, when one friend walked into the classroom, a buzz and bursts of laughter would follow.

“Hey, what happened to your hair?”

Whenever someone asked that question, my friend would always reply like this:

“I dozed off for a bit at the hair salon, and the stylist made me look like this.”

Everyone laughed when they heard that, but maybe they also felt a little relieved inside. Maybe it was the feeling of, “At least it wasn’t me.”

But at some point,

more and more friends started giving that kind of answer.

Did they really doze off at the hair salon?

Or was “I dozed off” just a defense mechanism for accepting a failed hairstyle?

Actually, I vaguely remember making that excuse myself.

Back then, most of us were taken to the hair salon by our parents,

and there, we often ended up with not “the hair I wanted,” but “the hair the stylist thought was okay.”

In those days when we couldn’t choose the result ourselves, do you remember feeling flustered and laughing awkwardly in front of the unfamiliar face in the mirror?

Those days when you thought, “This isn’t it...,” but couldn’t say anything, went home, washed your hair again, and accepted reality.

A nostalgic MacGyver hairstyle, and...

A famous story from those days comes to mind.

A child went to a hair salon and asked, “Please give me a MacGyver haircut.”

The stylist reportedly nodded and said, “MacGyver... you mean the guy from that foreign TV show, right?”

Reassured by that, the child dozed off for a moment, and when he opened his eyes, the mirror showed a BA from The A-Team hairstyle.

There was a similar story about someone asking for a “cool perm” and ending up with a “Jang Jeong-gu perm,”

because the stylist had thought of Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) from Knight Rider and did it that way.

Back then, hair salons were less places that provided customer-tailored styles than

spaces where the stylist cut hair according to their own aesthetic standards.

And children had no power to resist the result.

With just one phrase like “It suits you~,” we had to go home while secretly wondering, “Is this really right?”

The gap between the hair we dreamed of and reality

In school days, everyone probably wanted to copy a celebrity’s hairstyle. Some dreamed of Jung Woo-sung’s hair from the film Beat, some of Jang Dong-gun’s style from Last Present, and others of Son Ji-chang’s part from Feelings.

But reality was harsh.

Even with the same hairstyle, the result changed depending on the face.

The saying, “If you want that hair, your face has to keep up too,” did not come out of nowhere.

I once wore a hairstyle like Yun Dae-hyeop from Slam Dunk, and my friends asked if it was Hwang Tae-san’s hair.

Hair is more than just style

Now I am a plastic surgeon who deals with hair.

Maybe that is why I feel that hair is not simply a “style,” but something closely connected to self-esteem and identity.

In the clinic, too, there are often people who talk about memories tied to their hair.

“I used to hear that I had a lot of hair... I don’t even know when it started becoming like this.”

Behind such words are feelings of difficulty accepting reality, and a bitterness at facing the gap between the past self and the present self.

One patient even said this:

“In the past, I thought I was choosing my hair.

But now, it feels like my hair is choosing me.”

When I heard that, I suddenly remembered the frustration I felt at the hair salon during my school days.

Hair was not just something to be cut; it was part of how I expressed and protected myself.

Everyone wants MacGyver, but sometimes they end up as BA

Come to think of it, everyone expects a great style, but the result does not always turn out that way.

When the outcome differs from what we wanted, maybe we comforted ourselves with the words “I dozed off.”

But that does not necessarily mean failure.

Even in an unexpected hairstyle, you can find your own charm, and that experience may someday remain as a memory mixed with laughter.

Hair is not just decoration; it is a record that holds the self from that time, and my story.

Even now, when I sometimes meet friends from school, conversations like this come up.

“Hey, did you really fall asleep at the hair salon back then?”

“Well, I don’t really remember~ haha”

How about you?

Have you ever dozed off at a hair salon, or wanted to say you did?