Working the insane hours which I now find myself enslaved to, it is often difficult to break away from the job long enough to take care of personal maintenance details, like haircuts and such.
Tonight, I got off work at 7:00 pm, barely enough time to drive over to the only late-night salon in this one-horse town, which closes at 8:00. They assured me that I had gotten in under the wire, and they would get to me as soon as possible. I found a comfortable corner, and sat down and opened up some of the style magazines which were on the table next to my chair.
To my amazement, I discovered that the trend in design these days is to make humans look more like animals!
There was the "Lion Mane" cut, and the "Arrowhead" cut, a design which makes people look like they have a bird beak! There was also a "Poodle" cut, if you ever want to look like that. Most intriguing of all was the "Pheasant Feather" look, where the hair is dyed, actually, in the pattern of pheasant feathers, then trimmed to give the appearance of one wearing a bonnet, I suppose, of pheasant feathers upon one's head! I found all this rubbish to be amusing enough to while away a few minutes.
However, after 45 amusing minutes, I asked the staff once again if they would be able to get around to me. It seems that the two ladies who were in the chair at that time, were themselves getting some rather fancy hairdos. They assured me that they would get to me soon.
About that time, a chap and his young son walked in, and signed the "guest" list. Well, at 10 minutes before 8:00 pm, they told him that they would take him, everything was cool!
I settled back in my corner, and began to re-read the magazines of ridiculous hairstyles, comfortable in the knowledge that I would be next in line.
Then, a startling thing occurred. One of the "Bird Nest" hairstyle ladies was finished with her cut, and so a chair became open. I could scarcely contain my laughter as the old, overweight girl waddled out of the joint with a bird nest on top of her head, but who am I to judge style? I'm a nuts-and-bolts guy, I know jack-shit about fashion!
I said a short prayer for her husband, and then resumed my wait.
At that point, they called out the name of the guy who came in 30 minutes after me, and said he was next. I tried to protest, but his name was already on the book ahead of mine. He had just taken his son over to Wal-Mart in the interim, so he was technically still on the book, even though he was nowhere around when I came in.
I acquiesced, and waited patiently, as my blood boiled over, my liver turned into jello, my left eye went blind, and I began to get the gout in both my feet, until the lady at the chair finally said "Next!"
Ahhh, sweet relief!
I again suppressed a chuckle as the second lady walked out with a bird nest on top of her head, dude! I pretended not to notice the way her half-asleep husband in the truck recoiled in horror when he saw what the butchers of hair had done! That is one moment when I appreciated being single. Whew!
But then, reality set in! I thought "They have just mutilated the hair of two women before me, what shall happen to lil' bean-head Mikie?"
I approached the evil chair, and the wench wrapped me tight in the garment of choke torture, then asked me "How do you want it cut?"
I squeaked out "just off the ears, shortened up a bit and blended".
"No problem", she said.
As she began to cut, we talked, and it turned out she wasn't so bad after all. She asked me if I always parted my hair on the left side, and I told her "yes, unless I am visiting back home in West Texas, and then sometimes the wind just parts it on the other side!"
Because it was so late in the evening before she could get to me, I forewent the after-cut shampoo, so my hair was all full of hair-crumbs!
On my way into the house, I paused at the dog's bed and shook my head furiously, just to get back at him a little bit! Ha! It's OK, he would understand!
Well, that was my unusual day at the haircutters. The new "do" is adequate, I declined the pheasant feathers, I still have hair, and I can move on to more mundane matters in my life.
Mike's Musings...
Life on Mane Street
