#16 "Haircuts" -- Don

I hope I’m not in trouble with Olivia, but I moved the topic of “Haircuts” to this week because I just had one yesterday and considering that I only get my hair cut about every three months, I thought we’d just go ahead and yak about it today.

First, as a bridge to last week’s topic on strange words, I like to put it out there that the language I feel I am supposed to use when describing the haircut I’d like to have is more than a bit off-putting.  In fact, it perplexes me.  Every time I go to get a haircut, the barber (or stylist) asks, “How do you want it?”  Now, I understand the necessity of the question – the barber wants to know how much hair to hack off – but my own linguistic inability to articulate approximately how short to cut my hair is very disconcerting.

Naturally, I want it shorter.  Although I’d like to have it longer on top (where I am balding), the physics of the clippers pretty much rules out this option.  I’d like to say, “I’m tired of having more face to wash everyday; could you please just shorten the sides and lengthen the stubble on top?” but one important lesson I learned in childhood was never to make jokes with someone who has sharp objects in close proximity to your head.

The English language works against me when I’m in the barber’s chair.  If I ask for a “trim,” how much hair is he (or she) going to take off?  What is a “trim” anyway?  When you’re trimming a tree, you could be pruning branches off or throwing decorations on.  If I ask for a trim, am I going to leave with a garland around my head or a wreath?  What if I ask for a trim and I leave looking like Julius Caesar in the pizza ads?  I’m certainly not going to complain to the guy who has ready access to scissors and straight razors.  I guess what I’m saying is even if I leave the barbershop with leaves on my head, I'm going to tip the guy anyway because complaining about such things is simply not within me, and besides, it’s my fault for asking for a “trim.”

The word “clip” works the same way as “trim.”  You can cut something off by clipping it, or you can attach something to something else by clipping it.  However, I dare not say, “clip my hair off, please.  Do not clip anything to my hair.”  I have no idea how women, who make it a custom to clip things into their hair, have this conversation with their stylists.

Just how short my haircut end up is always a delicate issue when I get home.  You see, years ago while I was first dating Ruth, I made the mistake of letting my dad give me a haircut.  She had not seen me for a couple of weeks, and when I went to pick her up at the bus stop, I was wearing a toboggan (which, I know many of you think of as a sled but here in Southern Ohio is the word we use to refer to a winter stocking cap).   Thus, when I picked Ruth up at the bus stop she didn’t know that I looked like a new recruit for a Buddhist temple until after we got home and I took my hat off.   

That haircut freaked her out a little bit.  I think she thought, “Oh my god, if this guy is willing to go around with such a shockingly bad haircut, what else is he capable of doing?  What other dark secrets is he hiding?”

Okay, now in my defense, I didn’t ask my dad to give me the same haircut he gave me when I was seven.  It was just that that particular haircut was the only haircut he knew how to do.  What I couldn’t say when she asked me why I let my dad shear off my head like a farmer clipping a spasmodic sheep is that I didn’t have the money for a haircut because I had just shelled out for the down payment on an engagement ring that I was keeping hid in my pocket.

So when she asked me back then, “Did you mean for him to do that?”  I responded all manly and blustery and said, “Of course, I did” when actually I did not.  What I really wanted was just a basic haircut that does not call attention to itself, and I was hoping against all of my previous history that my dad wouldn’t operate his hair clippers as though they were manufactured by John Deere. Hope springs eternal when you’re broke.

Now, more than two decades later, Ruth still thinks I specifically ask for short haircuts when – truth be told – I just don’t know how to ask for the right haircut.  As soon as I get into the chair and the barber asks me how short do I want it, I begin to sound like a blithering idiot.   I stammer and jabber, and then, words just fall out of my mouth.

Perhaps, I should start driving to another town maybe an hour or so away and pretend that I’m mute.  Then I could hand the barber a preprinted card that would read, “Please cut my hair short enough so that I won’t need another hair cut next week, but long enough not to piss off my wife.”

Or I could just continue to do what I always do.  Go get my hair wacked off and when I get home, Ruth will ask me, “Did you mean to get it cut that short?” and I will suck in my breath and say, “Of course, I did.  It’s not too short is it?

And she will say, “Well, it’s short.”  I know there’s a lot more she’d like so say, but she’s kind enough to let it go.