I’d Rather Have Green Beans
WE RECEIVED A COUPON IN THE MAIL the other day. It came from one of the Mega-Stores – those places that sell everything short of nuclear weapons and reasonably fresh green beans.
More and more of these Metropoli of Commerce are subleasing space inside the main store to other, nonrelated, businesses. I think half of Subway’s shops are now inside Wal-Mart stores. Inside some Mega-Stores you can find Banks, Opticians, Medical Clinics that can put a band-aid on your kid’s forehead when he runs headfirst into a steel endcap display of discount detergent, and, like the new store in my area, a “haircutting salon.” I’ve always called them Barber Shops, but I don’t think there are many of those around any longer – certainly not inside one of these Mega-Stores in Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Where is the barber shop?”).
The coupon we got in the mail is for one of us, not both, to get “Any Haircut” in the new “salon” for the introductory price of $6.99. The fine print warns us that the normal price is $13.00.
Now comes the dilemma – which of us is going to put their head in the hands of someone, licensed by the State of Indiana, who is trying to pick up a few extra bucks to pay for Sally’s orthodontist and Junior’s defense lawyer while trying not to worry about whether or not she remembered to turn on the Crock-Pot this morning.
We debated this the other night during the baseball game and we decided that my wife, the lovely and more important tonsorially, Dawn, would NOT risk having her hair end up looking like the third green at an abandoned par three golf course. If that happened to me chances are that no one would even notice since I wear a cap even to take out the garbage.
So –
This morning, after two iced coffees and a check to verify that my Medicare card was in my wallet, I ventured forth.
I went to the Mega-Store by myself. Dawn had work to do and I had to show that I had the cojones to do this alone. It was for a haircut, for crying out loud, not a colonoscopy. I could probably get that done at the Clinic in the Mega-Store on the other side of town
When I got to the store I took my time going to the “salon.” I didn’t have an appointment (“No appointment needed!”) and I wanted to scope out the scene. I loitered.
The place was busy. There were a number of chairs, mainly filled with geezers like me, up against the wall. It could have passed for the waiting room at the hospital’s Urology Department.
There were eight what used to be called “barber’s” chairs, filled with geezers and one little kid who looked terrified and about to hurl , getting their hair cut, trimmed, styled – let’s face it – sheared. The roar from all of those clippers made it sound like a scene from a “Crocodile Dundee” movie.
“Sheep shearing time in the Outback, courtesy of your new Mega-Store. And all for only $6.99.”
I decided that it was more important for me to swing through the Produce Section again to see if I could locate some nice looking green beans. My hair could wait.
What bothers me the most is not that I’m missing out on a bargain priced haircut – No. What gets to me is that for the next month or so there are going to be a number of my fellow geezers, and one therapy-ready kid, wandering through the streets of Terre Haute looking like they were all Extras in “Schindler’s List.”
Down the Hall on Your Left 