I got my hair cut yesterday. As normally, I had let it grow down to almost my shoulders, and I then I have the cutter put a half-inch comby thing over some clippers and mow me like a lawn. I end up looking like the latest recruit to the FLM (Fat Lazy Marines).
Today, though, there were witnesses – a mom and her teen son (maybe 15 or 16?) who came in just as I was walking back toward the chair. So they got the whole show (which is well under 10 minutes for a mowing like mine). Her son’s hair was about as long as mine, maybe even a tad shorter. As I’m describing what I want to the cutter, I can see her gesturing to her son at me, like, “listen to what this man is saying.” At one point the cutter had buzzed down the sides and was encouraging me to keep some longer hair at the top, and I told her no, I didn’t want to have to maintain something – the idea was to just buzz it down every six months or so and otherwise forget it. Again, mom’s telling her son how much sense I’m making. The kid, of course, just has this utterly disgusted look on his face.
And as I get up and leave the mom gives me a big smile and even a thumbs up. The kid’s … looking elsewhere.
So, just like all shining examples to American youth, I am looked down upon or ignored entirely. My work was done!
And you lost 10 lbs doing it. The new patented **Boyo Jim **diet.
I hear one can pull the same trick by skipping tooth brushing & just getting an annual cleaning. It’s usually only 2 lbs of grunge that comes out though.
What Boyo Jim left out, and probably the real reason the kid was disgusted, it that the hair he let grow “almost to his shoulders” originated in his ears. His head is bald.
Three of brothers are actually half-brothers from my father’s previous marriage. Their birth mother was very strict about them needing to maintain short haircuts. When my parents married and they therefore had a new step-mom (they all chose to live with father) she looked at them and said “You can have any hair length you want so long as you wash it and brush it”
Their eyes absolutely shone and two of them got to growing their hair out immediately.
My (ex) upstairs neighbor is a very strict fellow. His nephew, who was once visiting the family to spend time with the neighbor’s kid, wore his hair longer than the neighbor liked. One fine morning, he say him down at the barber, and had the hair cut down to the “appropriate” length. The kid was extremely angry and just stormed out back to his place. So yeah, such people exist.
Until my last haircut, I’d go in every three or four months (as soon as taking off my sunglasses or driving with the window open meant ‘fixing my hair’ and get a #1 on top, no guard on the sides. Every.single.time, I’d get about three ‘are you sure’ questions. Yes, I’m sure. Yes, it’s just been a while. Yes, take it all off. Yes, I know it’ll be short. Yes, I know I’ll be able to see my scalp.
It was nice once I started going to the same person who knew what I wanted and stopped asking me.
