I have a lot of hair. Piles and piles of hair. It’s gorgeous when I can muster up the energy between work and class and guest lectures and conferences and writing and playing piano and dancing in my bedroom and non-alcoholic pina coladas to take care of it. And there’s so much of it; I’m convinced that I must have the strongest most elegant neck in the world to be able to still lift up my head. My neck must be the envy of gazelles to haul hair this heavy. If I stood on a boat I would surely sink it. It’s exhausting to take care of so much hair. I like to pass the responsibility to someone else. In this case, it’s my hairdresser, Jesus.

Jesus lives around Brentwood, over an hour’s drive from where he works in Palo Alto. I don’t actually know how much Jesus makes, but it could not possibly be enough. When Jesus washed my hair I was amazed at the strength in his hands. He actually asked me if he was scrubbing too hard and I was like, “Oh my God. Harder.” It was as though until this point every strand of my hair had been on fire at the roots, a raging flame fueled by the angry thoughts of patriarchal injustice, smothered with Jesus’s magical tension-releasing hands.

No, my hair has never literally been on fire. Although, I do have enough of it to fuel a fire for centuries. If the sun ever goes out, ask for my hair. I also have enough to bury objects in it, but please don’t tell the TSA.

Not only is it expensive to be a woman, it’s so incredibly dull, in the sense that one must sit for an hour or more in one place just to get her hair done, particularly if she possesses extraordinary amounts of it. As a woman I associate getting ready with necessary discomfort. Waxing legs is painful. Dressing hair is mind-numbing. Sometimes, if either goes on long enough, it’s either painfully mind-numbing or mind-numbingly painful. I’m sure someone will make the claim that these measures don’t need to be taken—but they do. Women don’t do these things because they’re luxuries; we do them to survive.

When I saw Jesus, for the first time a necessary measure was a pleasurable experience. The long round-brush strokes against my head were like a massage. Even the part that is typically the most annoying—which is the hairdresser trying to clip the remaining hair out of the way, because this usually requires at least two attempts due to the thickness and massive amounts—was satisfying, as Jesus would tug, twist, and place like it were meant to be a spa treatment. Jesus tugging at my hair was the best thing that’d happened to me all week. Certainly, Jesus was named after Prophet Isa, who could perform miracles. I’m assuming, of course; maybe he was named after his great grandfather. Either way, someone please give this man a million dollars.

By the way, as a result my hair looked the best it’s ever looked. I looked like a million dollars. I actually never use that phrase, but it was convenient to use in this context, because of the literary connections.

California recently raised the minimum wage to $15/hr, which frankly isn’t enough to live in the Bay. It especially won’t be enough in 2022, which is when the raise actually goes into effect. We should raise the wage for Jesus, who should receive an annual income of exactly one million dollars.

To be clear, I’m not saying the minimum wage should be raised to a living wage because Jesus is awesome (it’s likely he does make a little bit more than that); we should raise the wage because an hour of someone’s time should be valued enough to recognize that they need to be able to live. We should raise the wage for Jesus, my hairdresser, and for the Prophet Isa, who would be opposed to paying people close to nothing for their services—spectacular, or ordinary.