I Got Cut!!

So I go to my barber here in town and get a summer trim before I have to go out of town for a week long conference. Now my barber is actually a family of three guys and one woman. Really it's a Mom and a Dad and two sons well into their 50s. Mom doesn't cut hair much anymore and Dad is always the last one selected. It's a shame too because I think he might give the best haircut.

Now I don't play favorites so the first guy up is usually the guy I will pick for a haircut. Which is really a bad policy as the younger son ALWAYS is the first to his feet. He is closest to the door and a bit more spry than his old Dad. So, even though I looked longingly at the old man's chair, I took the first offered seat this afternoon.

I was the only customer in the joint. Mom starts talking politics and the banking crisis. She asks if I think we will fall into a recession. Mom was talking my language dude! Hell, it was like she read this blog, only spelled better! So we start talking political system changes and corruption, we talk economic instability and what it will take to secure our energy into the new century. And while deeply involved with mom, and now the other brother and Dad, I somehow heard, but never quite registered the nearly inaudible, "Uh... mmmm oh."

But now I was wound up baby! I was talking FDIC and trillions of debt and the new plan to bail out half of the homes falling into repossession. The room now was full of people for haircuts. The two empty chairs were now full and there was people waiting as younger brother leans forward and asks if I want my moustache trimmed. WTF?!! He never asks that? These are the guys who once said when a man gets to my age the eyebrows are the biggest part of the haircut! Now he is trimming my stache? I paused a bit in confusion, thinking it costs like a dollar more and... well... you know me. But what the hell, they had never asked before and right now they seemed to really value my opinion and must be thinking I am some big shot that was full of insider information. You know, the kind of guy you need to butter up and get on his good side.

I had mental images of myself propped back in my office with a personal barber cutting my hair while a manicurist buffed and polished my nails. All the time a bank of old heavy telephone rang away on my desk as an operator ran around frantically trying to keep up with the massive amount of important work I probably do through the day. Oh yeah, and I was chomping a big cigar, even though I don't smoke. But as Freud says, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

But the moustache trim extended to my beard, then a neck shave (Front AND back) as well as the razor cut above my ears. I mean this guy really went to town and trimmed my eyebrows and never even asked about the nose or ear hair. I am telling you dude, I was treated like royalty. I was just sure I had hit the big time since my opinion was so well valued they were giving me the full treatment. And I was thinking this right up until the younger brother seemed to reluctantly remove the hair bib/apron, pop all the hair off and brush off my shoulders like he was walking the Bataan Death March. Then with a wince of trepidation he handed me the mirror.

I glanced at it. It was a bit shorter than I had wanted, bit not bad for the summer. So I told him it looks like he did the best he could, considering what he had to work with. Then he held the mirror behind me so I could see the back of my head. NOW I understood why I got the full service as massive chunks of fur have been gouged out of the back of my skull. I look like our furry little dog after I give him a Dad haircut. The threat of a Dad haircut is enough to make Jr run frightened and hide in his bedroom while chanting, "Mommy please don't let him do it! Pleaseeeeeee!!!!"

So I sit there in a room full of people who have heard me blow hard for the full 4 minutes it takes to trim the 8 hairs left on my head. The room was so silent you could hear a pin drop. You would have thought E.F. Hutton was about to tear somebody a new assholes the way they all hung just a little more on the edge of their seats. But really, what can be done? If he could be a better barber, he would have been. The thought did cross my mind of asking if he could put some of the hair back, but then I realized this would not work. So I paid him my $10 and made the same mental note I make every month. Next time go with the old man. Stupid freakin short term memory loss.