I got a haircut yesterday. I went to the place my mom usually goes, because they do a good job and are relatively cheap. They told me Scott would cut my hair, which was fine with me. In my experience, male hairstylists tend to do a better job. I think this is because I usually frequent the lower end hair salons, where the women work there because they’ve recently been dumped by their drug-dealer boyfriends, have three children to support, hate their jobs, and usually have awful overly bleached, chemically fried hair themselves. But the men are usually gay, smartly dressed, have really good ideas about hair and fashion, and know what they’re doing. They’re also more fun to talk to than bitter single moms. Again, this has just been my personal experience.
So Scott sits me down, asks me what I want done, etc., and then starts chatting with me as he begins conditioning my hair. Everything he says is an obvious lie.
“You just moved from Austin? I used to live in Austin. Yeah, I was going to start a Hard Rock Cafe ™ there, but the banks are so prejudiced against non-Austinites, they wouldn’t lend me the money.” Now this statement is a little odd, and I’m not sure what the expected response is, so I mumble, “Umm,” as I give a little nod, and he continues:
“You know, I was going to move out to California, because I sold the copyright to the Supercuts ™ Franchise. I came up with that, you know. But I decided to stay in Austin. I did way too much partying there. I was young and stupid, and it was all before my first encounter with Evil.”
At this point, alarm bells start going off in my brain, and a voice is telling me, “Flee! Flee! Don’t let this nutjob touch your hair! Run away!” But out loud I say, “Oh,” and let him continue prepping my hair. Luckily, he did not expound on the Evil he met (I’m picturing pentagrams and candles and an altar to the Dark Lord with blood dripping from it). Instead, he starts telling me about all the celebrities whose hair he has cut.
“I cut Charlie Sheen’s hair once.” Then, as a Michael Bolton song comes on the obligatory easy listening station they play in every hair salon in the world, he says, “Man, I like Michael Bolton. I cut his hair once, you know. Nice guy. Hasn’t done much lately. I used to cut hair for Foley’s commercials, too. I also did that country singer’s hair, what’s his name? You know who I’m talking about? He wanted a mohawk. But I couldn’t cut his hair, because it turned out he’d been walking around with his skull split open. Yeah, I know. Crazy, huh?”
He’d read my mind. This man was nuts. Obviously he’d never met any of these celebrities. What the hell was he doing? Was he trying to make me feel better about his qualifications to cut my hair? Did he think that if he made up a bunch of celebrities I would say to myself, “Wow, this man must be a GREAT hair cutter. He cut Michael Bolton’s hair once! I’m going to tell all my friends about him!”?
Now that I’m thoroughly terrified, he’s finished conditioning my hair, and actually begins cutting it. It goes something like this:
Snip.
“Wow. Now THAT is straight.”
Snip.
“THERE it is. That’s right.”
Snip.
“Oh, would you look at THAT!!”
Snip.
“I am a GENIUS!”
Snip.
“Oops.”
Oops? What Oops? There can be no Oops. What has this asshat done to my hair??
“Just kidding! Bet I made you nervous, huh? Don’t worry, I’m a GENIUS!”
And so it goes, with him congratulating himself out loud every time the scissors don’t slip. At long last, he puts the finishing touches on my hair, hand me the mirror, and with no little trepidation I spin the chair around and look at my hair. He’s actually done a fabulous job. Best haircut I’ve had in a long time.
“This looks great!” I tell him. He sticks out his hand as I stand up.
“Awesome! Come back and see me sometime. I only work on Saturdays, you know, because of my construction business. And I’m pretty busy with Bible college, but I’m here every Saturday.”
I shake his hand as I mumble something polite, hoping that the Bible college is not where he met Evil, and thinking that the only way I’d be crazy enough to come back and see him was if I got my skull split open and suffered amnesia. As we pass his next customer in the waiting area, he leans over and conspiratorially whispers, “She sure doesn’t LOOK like a stripper, does she?”
Oh, boy. Finally, FINALLY, I pay, and discover that the price is $20 more than it was last time I got a haircut there. Maybe they charge extra for the entertainment.
