Thursday, March 15, 2007

On getting a haircut

When I got married and we set up housekeeping in town, the nearest place to get a hair cut was up the street, and so I started going there. Sixteen years later, the same woman cuts my hair but she has cut back to working just one day a week. In the meantime, I've moved, and she's moved a couple of times. She's had trouble with carpal tunnel syndrome. Often she has bandages on her wrists. I don't know what she charges. I would pay her more, and sometimes do.

Usually, I get my hair cut about every three months, need it or not, more often would be a waste. The last thing I want is to get someone new to cut my hair, and so I often complain that I cannot manage to coordinate my schedule with hers, but I get no sympathy. The general response is some questioning about why I find it imperative to have someone with reduced feeling in her hands come at my neck with scissors.

For a while when I was a kid in Abingdon, we patronized Flanary's Barber Shop on Main Street. He had a sign that read, "No long hair styles." I don't recall that he used scissors, rather he buzzed everyone equally in a manner as short on length as it was short on "style." He had a drawer full of bubble gum, a sample of which came with the price of a trim.

If I have to switch hair cutters, I hope I can at least find one with bubble gum.

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