I got a professional haircut today. This was my first since … oh, dunno. Like May of 2003, I reckon? (Yay blog)
When I told the stylist on the phone that I hadn’t been to a barber in six years, she gasped in alarm. “I don’t have six years of hair,” I added. Even so, she continued to sound flummoxed. I think the mere idea that someone would go for so long without an authentic haircut was, to her, like someone going six years without bathing, or having never seen en episode of Gossip Girl (of which I am also guilty (the not showering thing, I mean–love that Gossip Girl)).
I received much the same reaction when I arrived at the salon. You know that scene in suspense movies, where the guy who has been shot twice in the abdomen staggers into an emergency room and the staff like shoves aside elderly people with pneumonia and rush to his aid? It was kind of like that, except with less exaggeration for comedic effect.
They wouldn’t even give me a haircut at first; I had to go through a “consultation”. The stylist who drew the short straw came out and asked me a number of questions only slightly less than that found on the LSAT. To each I provided the same reply: “just do whatever you think is best.” At one point she even asked me if I wanted “a clipper and scissors cut or just clippers” and I explained that this was like me asking my grandfather if he wanted his email delivered via POP or IMAP. Haha, just kidding. Actually I said, “just do whatever you think is best”.
(ASIDE: My sextennial haircuts are not the only time this drives me nuts. When I go into a deli, why can I not just order a turkey sandwich and get a g.d. turkey sandwich, instead of having to approve or deny each and every member of kingdom Plantae? NO ONE WANTS BUTTERNUT SQUASH ON A TURKEY SANDWICH DONT EVEN ASK!! I appreciate that they are trying to “make it my way” or whatever, but after the third time I have unconditionally delegated any and all turkey-sandwich-making authority to the guy behind the counter, it’s time for the questions to end. Call me crazy, but I presume that someone who makes sandwiches eight hours a day has a mental model of “turkey sandwich” that is closer to the Platonic ideal of Turkey Sandwich than I could ever fathom, and should therefore be Team Captain for this particular enterprise.)
Eventually the stylist put me in a reclining chair and lowered the back of my head into a basin, and I began to worry that there might be some waterboarding in my immediate future if I didn’t cough out some specifics, so I said, “give me the most stylish haircut I can have and not get fired from my corporate job”, and then she kind of went blank for a moment, apparently querying the Stylist Hivemind Database, and when she returned a moment later she said, “okay, I’ve got it”, and that was the end of the questions. Then I got a scalp massage. So it all worked out.
By the way, I didn’t go to the appointment completely unprepared. Yesterday I had this conversation with my wife:
Me: How should I get my hair cut?
The Queen: I like it short on the sides and a little long in the front. And short in the back.
M: Okay.
Q: And you look good with a beard. Like, not a full beard, but a closely cut beard.
M: …
Q: What?
M: You are just describing that photo.
Q: What photo?
M: The photo on the fridge. Of me, in the tuxedo, from that wedding? In like 1998? The only time in my life I have ever had a beard?
Q: Oh yeah. I guess I am.
M: So to be clear: you are not giving me actual haircut suggestions, you are just saying that you want me to look 10 years younger.
Q: That would be perfect, yes.
Update: Jeezum crow, the blogarazzi got aggressive in my absence. HERE YOU GO JACKALS!!
For reference, this is what it looked like three weeks ago:
So I’m going to call it an improvement.
Yes, I am well aware that I need to write a Halloween postmortem.