I’m dubious, but surely just a trim, and who knows, even a pedicure, might do the trick. The last time I was in Tucson, I actually tried to buy one of those hard-skin scraper things from the pharmacy section in Wal-Mart, but the girl behind the counter informed me they were illegal.

‘Only registered podiatrists and pedicurists are allowed to carry ‘em.’ she said primly, before adding, ‘They’re very dangerous, you know.’

‘Dangerous?’

‘Oh yes, they’re very sharp. We wouldn’t be allowed to sell something like that here.’

‘But you can buy a gun in this store, right?’

‘Sure can,’ she chirruped. ‘Right over there by the hunting knives.’

‘So let me get this straight. I can’t buy a scraper, but I could buy a gun and shoot the dead skin off my feet, right?’ But she’d looked so bewildered I hadn’t the heart to take it further.

As I wrench open the door to Vanillaheads, a great mushroom of hair spray escapes, stinging my eyes and forcing my throat to constrict in protest. The two girls inside wear green pinafores and sport Dynasty hair and white stilettos, which add four inches to their height at either end.

‘Help ya?’ says one, carefully extricating her client from underneath the dryer. When I fail to answer, the other prompts, ‘Here for a cut? We do hair and we do colour and we do manicures.’ She flips a paw my way and I duly admire her nail extensions, which are exquisitely decorated with tiny star-spangled banners.

It’s a small salon, with only four hairdressing chairs. Three of them are occupied, two with clients whose heads are encased in flesh-coloured rubber hats permeated with holes through which selected tresses have been yanked then smeared with bleach, making the women look like burn victims who’ve lost most of their hair but who are, at least, having a soothing salve applied to their scalps. I panic, and instead ask for directions to the first thing that pops into my head.

‘What kind of church?’ the girls chorus helpfully. ‘There’s a First Baptist right round the corner, or a Seven Day Separatist opposite, there’s the Methodist over by the Ob/Gyn’s office on Portal Street . . .’

‘And what about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, back on up the north side of town?’ one of the poor burn victims offers up.