It’s Haircut Time!
I GOT MY HAIR CUT ON MONDAY. I needed a haircut a month ago, but with all the travelling and such I never got around to it. My head was beginning to look like a Chia Pet version of myself.
Every Monday the folks at Fantastic Sam’s haircutting emporium, next to Wal-Mart, have a special – Monday is Men’s Day. That means that there is a discount. It’s not a BIG discount, but what the heck; I don’t have a BIG head.
The shop opens up a 9 AM on the dot and I like to get there before a crowd shows up. I also want to get there so I can get my hair cut and still get to St. Arbucks in time for the early services/brewing with the Usual Suspects.
This past Monday I walked through the door at 9:02 AM and there was already somebody ahead of me. He looked at me with a hint of Smug on his face.
What? Did he camp out overnight like those hopeless dweebs who show up days early when a new I-Phone goes on sale?
Fortunately a second haircutter/barber/stylist (I never know what to call them.) was there. She beckoned me to park my carcass in her chair. She looked both confident and awake – a good combination at that time of day when sharp objects are involved.
Aware that she had never cut my hair before I filled her in on a few pertinent “need to know” factoids.
- I have a bump on the back of my head. It has been there all my life.
- It will not explode if you touch it.
- It will not bleed unless you stab it.
She didn’t shrink away from my head or run, screaming into the back of the store, so I figured that we were a “Go.”
I explained how I wanted my hair cut – short, especially in the front so that I won’t have those Mamie Eisenhower bangs two weeks down the road. She nodded and said, “OK. You want the basic adult male haircut.”
I took off my glasses and put my head in her hands, in both the figurative and literal senses.
She snipped away and made idle small talk, just like a real old-fashioned barber. My grandfather was a barber so I know from idle small talk.
After about ten minutes she handed me my glasses so I could make a cursory inspection. It looked good – except that I needed the front cut even shorter. I could see the specter of Mamie lurking in the near future.
After a few more snips I gave her the thumbs up. My head felt ten pounds lighter and the floor around the chair looked like a rug made from an aging polar bear.
I wasn’t in the chair all that long, but when I got up and turned around I saw that every seat in the waiting area was occupied. It looked like an invasion of AARP Storm Troopers. Geezers with shaggy gray hair were everywhere.
If I didn’t know better I’d swear that I was in the Urology Dept. waiting room at the Mayo Clinic.
If nothing else, this supported my strategy of getting there early, before “The Attack of The 50 ft. Geezers” went down. If I had to wait until all of those old guys got their minimal hairs cut I’d still be sitting there come lunchtime.
And Fantastic Sam’s doesn’t have a buffet.
Down the Hall on Your Left 