Hair

[Moray]

Personally, I find the joke in poor taste. My real objection, though, is to your idea that "it's not like they're actually hurting the person, so it's ok to joke about"

Like, you'd never joke about cutting someone, but their hair is fair game because it's "dead tissue".

I'm saying that mindset isn't ok. Frankly, it's a bit offensive and it's why many of us with long hair get super protective of it.

I hate to ask the question, but what if the joke had been, "Just pull out your pocket knife and decapitate her with it.  " 
Obviously, no one is going to ever in a million years do that...

Then it still would have been in poor taste for this board. And you bet your bottom dollar she'd be getting the same objections, along with a "helpful hint" or two that the pocketknife is the wrong tool for the job.

[AllTheThings]

I do not find someone 'joking' about cutting another person's hair funny. The poster was asking an honest question of how to handle a situation. I do not see how the 'joke' was helpful to her.

People already made good suggestions. I didn't have one that hadn't been said. I wasn't really trying to be helpful, I just thought people would laugh. Sorry for upsetting you.

[rashea]

May I suggest that we drop the discussion of the "joke" or take it to a different thread? I suspect that continuing in this line will get the thread locked.

[AllTheThings]

It could be that the person who said "cut it off" has read a few e-hell topics where others threatened to cut off the poster's hair and was referring to them.

In any case i would flip it back over if trying to ask them twice didn't work.

I didn't. I don't know what threads you are talking about.

[WillyNilly]

May I suggest that we drop the discussion of the "joke" or take it to a different thread? I suspect that continuing in this line will get the thread locked.

Seriously folks.  OK everyone gets it.  I'm sure All The Things gets it - some people are very bothered by her joke.  But its really derailing the thread.  Over 1 whole page of responses was about one poster's joke instead of the topic at hand.  Lets get back on track please.

[Eden]

I do not see how the 'joke' was helpful to her.

We get a little off-topic on most threads and often joke around about silly things.  It sounds like it may have hit a sensitive spot for some posters. But I would hope they would see that it was very obviously not even remotely serious and leave it at that.

[Eden]

Sorry for my poorly timed post, Willy Nilly!

[Wordgeek]

All The Things understands now the hair cutting comment was in poor taste.  Move on, please.

If you have constructive suggestions on how to handle the situation in the OP, please share.  Otherwise, hold your tongue.

[sweetonsno]

I have no issue touching hair.  If I couldn't wake her easily, I'd just move her ponytail back into her own space.  If I did have a problem touching hair, I would either use a pen to lift it up and over or do as Willy Nilly suggested and use my own bag to keep it out of my space.  And if that resulted in her hair getting pulled a little bit when she moved?  Well, that would be a consequence of not keeping her hair in her own space.

This is how I feel. You should wake them up and politely ask them to move their hair. Failing that, I would flip it back over with a pen, notebook, or other not-my-hand item. I probably would not put a handbag there if I knew it would wedge the ponytail between the bag and the back of the seat because getting your hair pulled can be quite painful, even if it's an accident. (I don't flip my ponytail over the back of seats, but I've had several people grab a handful of my hair when they grabbed the headrest to keep their balance as they walked by. Ouch.)

[diesel_darlin]

I had a similar problem at a NASCAR race a year or so ago. The lady sitting in front of me kept flipping her hair into my lap. I had a cup of drink in my lap. I asked her nicely to watch out for her hair. Several times. I promise I was E-hell nice.  .

 I finally wound up telling her that the next time she flipped her hair into my lap that if and when it landed in my sweet tea she wasn't going to like wet sticky hair.

I would wake the lady up, and ask her to move her hair. While I would feel bad that I woke her up, I couldnt sit there with her hair all over me like that. 

[Sharnita]

OP, what did you do?

[Shopaholic]

By the time I realized she was asleep I had two stations left to go, so I swung my legs to the side until my stop.
Moving around in a moving bus gives me motion sickness, so changing seats was not a great option for me.