Haircut--pro and not

It was time for a haircut, since the last time was for Halloween (yes, to cap off an awesome Baseball Fury costume). For Halloween, I just went to Supercuts and asked them to chop it off at a certain length. Truth be told, I kind of benefit from a more professional cut--my hair is pretty coarse, thick, with a slight kink (think Yoko Ono during the Bed-In days)--but run into a similar dilemma each time: Despite my preamble that I'm pretty much a wash-and-wear kind of girl, the pro haircutter usually laughs it off as if I couldn't mean that literally. Unlike the lady at Supercuts, who will usually shrug her shoulders and proceed to literally take off 3 inches all around, the pro haircutter assumes that I at least use a blow dryer (I don't), "product" (whassat?), and hair brush (only have a drawer full of combs). And they talk me through about how easy it's to style it smoothly and retrain my cowlick, while squirting handfuls of styling gels and creams through my hair. And wha-la! A perfectly smooth hairstyle seemingly sculpted out of doll hair:

In my lesser, lazier hands:

As of this writing, I have invested in a hairbrush.