Hello, Happy Thanksgiving,

I am wondering what to do about a sticky, complicated situation.  On Monday, I had a regularly scheduled haircut/trim with my stylist that I love.  I was trying to get errands run, etc. before having an outpatient procedure on Tuesday.  I had to have part of my thyroid removed for a lot of reasons.  My hair had gotten to look pretty bad during the pandemic, and the stylist I used to have for eight years for some reason just lost her skills.  I was looking for a couple of months for someone who could fix it, and I finally found someone that was awesome. I had typed in "top salons."  For the past six months the guy really got my hair into shape.

Monday, I went in for the usual trim, he wet it and was about to trim it, when all of the sudden, he left and never came back.  He never said a word.  He said, "Where do you part your hair?" And then he took off.  I was sitting there in the chair, with my hair wet and the cape on, totally bewildered. Another stylist came up and said that he had some kind of nervous breakdown or anxiety attack.  I found out later he went straight from the syling station to his car and drove home without saying a word.

The woman who took over for him was very nervous, and she cut my hair.  She was a wreck herself, and did a pretty bad job.  I could feel the anxiety and tension so thick, and I was trying to be pleasant and understanding because I deal with emotional issues myself, but it was just too much. She was talking incessantly.  She kept talking about how her sister had the same illness I do, and how terrible it was and all of the symptoms...it was too much for me I was overwhelmed.  I kept pointing out to her how uneven my hair was, and she brushed it off saying that he would go back and fix it later.  At the point where she was blow drying it, I just couldn't deal with the emotional tension and the sight of my hair being ruined, so I took off the cape and went to the front.  I was completely fine when I went in that morning, but by now I was sobbing, saying I didn't want to have a big personal conversation; she had been talking about battered women also, which was another sore point for me. All I wanted was my hair cut.  I'm embarrassed that I was crying at the reception area, it was making the receptionist upset too. It wasn't that I wasn't trying to pay, I was just so bewildered in the moment that I ran out of the salon.  I was sobbing in the parking lot of the grocery store later. 

I called the salon back later, I'm not sure if the situation is going to get straightened out.  I had my surgery Tuesday, it's a slow recovery. But my hair, which took six months to fix (it's why I went to this salon) looks like crap now, and I have this incision on my neck.

I'm more calmed down now, but I'm not sure what to do. I'm not sure if I should ever go back to this salon, or if I should even bother with them. Part of me feels in retrospect that I should pay the bill since they did cut it (even though it looks awful).  I didn't mean not to pay, the whole thing was just such a whirlwind. I had asked to speak to the owner and general manager-they never got back to me. I talked to another manager and sent him the pics of my hair. He didn't comment on the pics that I sent-no answer or reply to the email. I had tried a few other salons before this, and they were not of much help. 

I guess my question is: do I owe them the money for the botched cut?  I've never walked out somewhere without paying a bill-ever. But, being abandoned in the salon seat has never happened to me either, so that's a first.  Do I try to work things out with them? Are they willing to?  Something tells me they are hoping I will go away because I was so emotional. The circumstance is pretty unique. I don't want to go to work like this on Monday, with my hair looking like this and a big incision on my neck. Any rational thoughts or advice would help. I'm pretty confused here and I don't know what the right thing to do is.