Getting Ahead

Actually, a lot more head than I bargained for.

There’s a new chain of cheap inexpensive hair salons. Since I don’t require a lot of fancy styling skills, cheap is good.

Take a look at any picture of me on here or other social media sites. I keep my hair short and uniform. A “number two buzz cut, all over.” For those who actually spend money, time, and effort on their hair, buzz cuts come from one-half to eight, one-half being the shortest, eight being the longest. Apparently some people get it buzzed on the side but leave it longer on the top, so I learned long ago to say “all over.”

Something like this, perhaps? I think not. “All over” it is.

It’s a brain dead stupid and easy haircut to give. For the record, if I could see in back to do the final trimming, I would get a set of clippers and do it myself. How could anyone mess it up?

Well, let me tell you…

This new place is fancy in that they remember how you got your hair cut last time. So my stylist gets a little slip to read, a scouting report of sorts.

“Okay,” she says, “last time you got a number one buzz cut, all over. Is that what you want this time?”

“No, last time I got a number two buzz cut, all over. That’s what I want again this time.”

“Okay, a number one buzz cut, all over. You got it.”

“Wait, stop.” I hold up two fingers. “Not a number one, a number TWO buzz cut, all over.”

“Oh, okay, a number two buzz cut, all over.”

“Right.”

So she fiddles with the little clip on guards they put on the clippers to keep it uniformly a certain distance from your head. No matter what or where, that’s how long your hair is going to be. She moves around behind me, I look in the mirror, and she starts mowing.

About the time that she got the first good swipe that went all the way to the front where I could see it, it was clear to me what she had done. I might have had my eyes widen in surprise (or I might have let out a blood-curdling scream) because she stopped.

“Oh, no,” she said. “You wanted a number two, not a number one?”

“Well, I guess NOW I want a number one!”

Yeah, that’s really short. I guess if I ever wondered about actually just shaving it all to look like Yul Brenner or Telly Savalas, this w0uld be an excellent time for it.

As the Captain said in “Cool Hand Luke,” “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate!”

(So really, I’ll get myself a set of clippers – for the price of two haircuts I’m set for life. Even if I can’t trim up the back, how could I mess it up any worse than this?)