Happy Birthday to my brother, Marc! By the time I thought of calling him it was about 1am where he lives in Malmo, Sweden. I thought about it for a second, then I figured having your sister wake you up at 1am on your birthday to ask you to call her back so that her phone bill wouldn't be too high might be a tad irritating.

Also, seven years ago today Steve and I had our first date, after having met the night before. Yea for us.

When I tell people that I get my hair done at Sears, they are usually quite taken aback.

Sears? Are you serious? Sears?

Yes, and for a very simple reason. They don't screw women at Sears.

I wore my hair down to my butt for many, many years. A haircut consisted of nothing more than a quick snip around the bottom to keep the ends neat and I was out of there in five minutes. When I decided to cut my hair and part ways with my old hairdresser about the same time, that's when the adventure began.

Picking a stranger that you allow to touch your head is serious business. Supercuts is out of the question. I used to have a friend who worked there and the stories she told me were heinous. They docked her pay if she didn't fill a quota = quick, shoddy, assembly-line haircuts that look all choppy as they grow out.

Back to my point, trying to find a new hairdresser was hard. You know what I found? Virtually every salon charges women more for a haircut than men! Some charge double. Why are women so stupid? Why do women willfully pay more for the same service as men?

Don't try to tell me that women's hair is more complicated, that's complete bullshit. One look at my husband's hair vs. my hair would put that excuse to rest. Could you say women are more picky? No, you've never met my brother, Marc. Whatever excuse the salons can come up with, any one of us can give them examples to the contrary.

After a long and exhausting search, I walked into the Sears salon here in Burbank and found that men's and women's haircuts cost exactly the same. And that's where I got my long blonde rope whacked off, and I have been going there since.

And what's with the dry cleaner charging more for women's shirts? They say that women's shirts are smaller than mens and don't fit on the machine properly. Anyone who has seen my boobs would be hard pressed to find a man who wears a bigger shirt than I do. Same goes for ornamentation, that's another excuse I've heard drycleaners use, that women's shirts often have little doodads and ruffles. I would pull my nosehairs out with a pair of rusty pliers before I wore a shirt like that. I like tailored clothing with not a lot of details on them, in fact sometimes I go ahead and buy my collared shirts in the men's department. Once or twice the drycleaner has had to ask if it was a men's shirt or a women's shirt. And then they charge me more for cleaning my shirts. Bullshit!

I showed them, I go out of my way to find clothes that don't need to be drycleaned, and the few Dry Clean Only pieces I just had to buy get a round of Dryel.

While I'm at it, I'm going to bring up mechanics. My mechanic is the coolest, most wonderful guy in the world and I love him to pieces. (smooch smooch to you!) However, I used to drive a '90 Oldsmobile with a quirky design flaw. Anytime the battery was disconnected you had to take it to the dealership to have the timing retrained because it wouldn't do it by itself. No big deal, my cross to bear. I usually took it to the Oldsmobile dealership in Alhambra where I was in-and-out in ten minutes and paid them $75 a pop.

One day I was feeling impatient and drove my dying car to the much closer Oldsmobile dealership in Glendale. They took my car in and a few minutes later the mechanic came out and told me that he couldn't retrain my timing until he did *this* *this* and *this* to it, jacking the bill up another $800.

I was quite taken aback.

I took a chance that he was lying. I asked for my car back. The guy behind the counter charged me $50 to give me my keys. I drove my car to the dealership in Alhambra, had them fix the timing, paid the $75, and drove back to the Olds dealership in Glendale.

You know that saying "Blind with Rage"? That's not just a saying. I was so fucking pissed off I could not see. I had to bite my teeth down to keep from screaming. I walked up to the guy behind the desk, showed him my receipt from the dealership in Alhambra, and demanded my money back. He handed me my check, all apologetic, embarassed at getting caught. I'm kicking myself that I didn't turn those assholes in.

Businesses screw women because they can get away with it. Period. Whatever excuse they give you for charging you more, don't fall for it. Don't patronize businesses that have unfair pricing policies. Equal treatment is far more important than vanity.

It's a sexist, bullshit world and women are paying for it.