KOM gets a haircut

The wife took the boy and left for a family reunion this last weekend.

So I had the booze on IV, which left my hands free for the PS2 controller. I gave up and just plugged the modem line into my ear.

Saturday morning, square-eyed and hung over, I thought briefly about what chores I should do. The weeds needed whacking, the drainage ditch needed digging and it couldn't have hurt to do laundry or dishes... I finally decided that I could probably, just barely, squeeze a haircut between a craptastic Saturday afternoon TV movie and going to bed early.

I've had my hair short now for the better part of 3 years, but I'm still wary about people coming at my head with stainless steel blades. For the 10 years before I chopped my locks (for my wedding, incidentally), I could count on one hand the number of professional cuts I had received. I'm pretty sure I got one for senior prom. Then... ummm... I don't remember. Someone probably got me drunk and told me that we were going to get a tattoo.

So I folded myself into the Civic, and headed for the local chain hair place.

I'm 6' 2". Not one of the women in the whole outlet were over 3' in heels. So of course the shortest one, the one that I needed field glasses to even notice, shouted "my turn!"

Crap, here we go again.

After she had finally ascended her ladder to my height, she tsked my shirt collar and tucked it into my shirt, untucked it, tucked it back in, tsked again, tucked it in, sighed then wrapped 5 feet of that toilet-paper like "neck gauze" around my throat until she was satisfied that I couldn't breathe.

Then came the usual litany of all my haircuts. "Lower." "Lower." My feet up against the wall and my shoulders barely on the chair, my head sat at an impossible 90 degree angle to the rest of my body. "Good," she says.

The woman took 45 minutes to trim my neck-line. She would buzz a single hair off, back up, set her chin in her hand, squint, come closer, back up, squint, then cut another single hair with the clippers. Repeat. Approximately 40,000 times. Just for my neck line.

I won't even tell you about the great ear-leveling fiasco.

While she was working, she would hound me incessantly about my zodiac sign.
"So, you're a Capricorn? Capricorns make money. Do you make money?"
"No."
"Tsk. Just like my son. He's so lazy. But he's a Sagittarius. He's just lucky. But my other son is a Capricorn. He works very hard and will make a lot of money."
"Mmm."
"He's quiet like you. Why don't you talk more? You must be thinking about how to make more money."
"Uhh-"
"Did you know Howard Hughes was a Capricorn?"

So on top of everything, she compared me to a man who collected his fingernails. Only lazier.

"Yeah, I'll Spruce-goose your tip."
"What?"
"Nevermind."
"You don't want to tell me about your money?"

On the plus size, she believed me when I told her that I didn't want any gel. Most stylists laugh like you said something funny and before you can head-weave out of the situation, they've greased you up like the deaf man on Family Guy.

Yep, it's time to grow my hair out again. Then I can tell my son I'm Jesus and Santa.