My Haircut

While down home for Christmas last week I went into town and got my hair cut. Now, if I've had my hair cut 75 times in my life, prolly 72 of them were cut by a man. No funny business, buzz buzz buzz on and off the chair in ten minutes. Tho when I was a kid the wait would be about 3 hours - on Saturday morning my dad would drop my brother and I off at Jimmy the Barber's for our haircuts, loudly proclaiming to Jimmy each time "Jimmy, I want them to have BOY haircuts." I don't know what he was scared of; I never once heard of Jimmy pissing off a father in town by giving a kid a beehive or something. Not once did I hear Jimmy look at a young buck and say "I'm gonna cut your hair like Strawberry Shortcake!" Then my brother and I would sit amongst the dozen or so 50 year old farmers in there, reading Reader's Digest while the old codgers shot the shit about tractors and crops and other shit we had no idea what they were talking about. After about three hours of waiting you'd get waved over to the chair by Jimmy (until I went to college I thought his last name was in fact "Thebarber") who would chop it all off in about 17 seconds, all while getting in what was a clinic on small talk "how you boys been playing ball this year how the team lookin saw your daddy rollin over battery the other day yeah he's a good ol boy which one are you, part or no part whatchu say whatchu say bout it boy" BAM! taking off the shower curtain wrapped round your neck, you're outta the chair. I'd wonder what went on over at some girl named Robin's shop, where all my rich friends got their hair cut. Sorry, styled. I'd picture over at Robin's there's a real-life Pizza Hut buffet set up while girls in pajamas would come over and dance along to J. Geil's "Centerfold", wildly applauding each snip of the scissors and spreading all the 5th grade gossip while dancing the watusi and eating baby egg rolls. Meanwhile I'm sitting for three hours listening to Field & Stream come to life during mudbogging season, each old cuss more ornery than the last re: what pussies the military has become, unlike when they were fighting the Japs outfitted with only some shoestring and the knowledge of the difference between right (us/jesus) and wrong (them/slant-eyed jesus.)

My developmental haircut experiences having been so testosterone-heavy, I followed suit everywhere I moved to afterwards, seeking out the most old-school mf I could find. Culminating with my guy in Brooklyn now - been there since 1960 and is prolly the last standing barrier between myself and my paying double digits for a haircut (shudder to think.) Also, a side note: during my haircut career as a kid, Jimmy the Barber got married maybe 76 times. I'm not even kidding, every other fucking time you'd try to go by his shop there'd be a sign on the door "GONE ON HONEYMOON, BACK NEXT WEEK." And what do you know, the next time you'd be there during lunchtime some new woman would breeze in with a bag lunch for him, give him a big sloppy kiss on the lips and leave him beaming. Man. Cap. Doffed.

Anyways, so I found myself going into town and into the Hair Cuttery or whatever the fuck it is, and next thing you know I'm having my scalp rubbed by some woman. Alright I think, no big deal. I tell her what I want and she's relieved cause it bascially let's her turn her brain off for ten minutes while plowing my cephalic fields. So she gets done quick, I'm almost out of the chair, when she turns to me and asks me something I've never heard anyone ask me before:

"Trim the eyebrows?"

Whhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattt???!!!!!! I clenched up as if I had dropped the soap in Clay Aiken Shower Camp - trim eyebrows? What the fuck? Now, no one's more of a pussy liberal bleeding heart pansy than me, but trimming my eyebrows, I'm sorry, I'm not fucking ready to go there just yet. She might as well have asked me to run through town screaming "I love my dead gay son!!!" Plus, I didn't know how much extra that would cost - I was already pissed my 6 minute haircut was costing me $12, for all I know trimming eyebrows is another, oh, $34 or some such. What the fuck. So I quickly demured and got out of the chair, paid for my haircut and left. And yes, like clockwork I've spent the last 121 hours obsessing "do my eyebrows NEED trimming? whats wrong with my eyebrows? did I completely miss the boat on the eyebrow thing? I got an eyebrow problem?..." thanks Hair Cuttery girl. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!


















"...alright alright, let's see, let's see....whoa! Larry, I gotta tell ya, your eyebrows...she did a great job! Fucking awesome, bro!"