haircut woe

First let me preface this by saying that I really dislike getting a haircut. For one, I find small talk truly uncomfortable, but there is just no way around it when getting one's hair styled. More importantly, I hate getting haircuts because I've had maybe two good cuts in my life. I suppose I'm just incompetent at communicating exactly what I want the finished product to look like, but really, it can get confusing. For some reason, every time I request "shoulder length," my hair ends up at my chin, and when I request "chin length," it ends up at my ears. Then there is the whole business of layers. "Choppy layers" and "long layers" seem to mean completely different things to every stylist, and somehow I can never pinpoint which term is going to get through to whoever is holding the scissors.
Suffice it to say, I go a really (appallingly) long time between cuts - my last one was in March. It's been so long partially because of my aforementioned phobia, but also because my last cut was one of the two good ones of my life, so it lasted a pretty long time. I mean, I really loved it, so much so that I was a little giddy when I left the salon. So it being almost time for school to start again and thus necessary for me to look somewhat professional, I figured I would return to the same place and person who worked such magic a few months ago.
It all started off well, since my stylist seemed to remember me (this never happens) and even seemed to remember how she had cut my hair. I told her I loved the cut I had, but I just needed it to be cleaned up and shortened. And with those words, I relaxed and even indulged in some semi-comfortable small talk.
Semi-comfortable, that is, until she finished with the blow dryer and I looked in the mirror only to discover that my hair now looked like a horrible combination of The Rachel and Florence Henderson in the late years of the Brady Bunch.
I've never been very good at voicing my dissatisfaction to someone who has provided a service. I started by politely asking if she could cut my bangs a little more, just so they didn't hang in front of my eyes anymore. After a few tries, she got those sort of close to right, and I moved on to trying to explain that I didn't want to look like a seventies TV mom. Several times, she insisted that it just looked weird because of the way she had styled it, so we went through the blow dryer thing a few more times, but to no avail. On the verge of a breakdown, I finally just asked her to cut another inch off the bottom layer and leave it at that.
I guess I won't really be able to tell what it looks like until I style it myself tomorrow, but suffice it to say, my hair has been back in a ponytail and several bobby pins all day. Let's hope something good materializes tomorrow.