You've got your 3 choices for a haircut as I see it. Your first option is some salon type of place, be it for men only or not it'll be filled with reasonably attractive women, you getcha a wash first to degrease and de-gel ya if necessary, someone coos all over you for half an hour, then you walk out feeling refreshed, good looking, and happy even though $40 lighter. Second option is to hit the mall/cheap haircut place. I learned long ago that unless you've got a short, clippers only hairstyle, these are not the place to go. I've come home looking like a circus freak too many times. Your last option, ol reliable, the barbershop. You've been in one you've been in most all of em. Mostly white haired guys working tired chairs in front of cracked mirrors, news or sports - never NPR - crackling out of some banged up set of speakers. That's my usual haunt now, and my guy Jose knows how to take care of me, scissors - no clippers - straight razor the neck and weed out the ears and eyebrows. $12 this year...first price increase in years.
Yesterday, no Jose.
I don't usually like to make a lot of chat, I'd rather close my eyes and tune into the rest of the place, but the old guy I had yesterday was chatttttttyyyy. He'd made a comment about his son, a mechanic, who'd just turned 30 and has 3 kids and ... I tuned out until he mentioned his son wanted to go get himself a motorcycle last year and the father, my barber, stopped cutting long enough to begin ranting "I told him he'd best not get one of those because it would be too selfish, what with his young wife and children and all". I should have just kept quiet, but opened my eyes, caught those of the old man in the mirror and piped up. "hmmm. You know I got a motorcycle the first time ever last year, first time in my life I figured I was old enough and responsible enough to have one WITHOUT killing myself by going out and being stupid on it."
Well, I then listened to every story the old man could think of. His first ride on his brand new scooter type of mini cycle when he was an early teen. Got out into a gravel road, wound it up, went @ss over teakettle into a ditch and walked a bloody mile home, never to climb on it again. His second ride at 16, on the back of some friend's ride. The buddy went up a similar gravel road, and slid the back end side to side to scare him. It worked. He never got on another motorcycle again. His friend who hit a telephone pole and nearly lost his job as a VP at some company because they weren't comfy with him working from home during the year recovery. Someone who got hit by a car. Friend of a friend who rode even with a broken leg. Another who hit a deer one year and his wife hit a deer the next. It was evident there was no use arguing.. no trying to change his mind.
I explained I try to ride safe and pay attention and we've all got a time comin at some point so may as well LIVE now... he replied that he convinced his son to get a boat, which was much better as they could go out as a family (and drown together I guiltily thought) and wasn't as selfish as a motorcycle (again with the selfish?).
So for 30 minutes I got a passable haircut, a lecture, and the unsettling desire to hop on the Trumpet, motor over to the auto dealership where he works, walk in, ask for the 30ish year-old auto mechanic with a wife, 3 kids and a boat... and tell the guy that no matter what he does, if he wants to learn to ride, if he feels it down there in his gut, that he should go take a freakin class and learn to ride for HIS enjoyment and damnit live for himself for a bit, then walk out.
He'd have no freakin idea where it came from, or why.
Man that old barber got under my skin...
