The Unkindest Cut

Barbers are the only kind of people in the world who can mess up other people's hair and get away with it. And they get paid for it too. I never liked barbers ever since I was I child. I hated them.

I went for my routine short sides and back yesterday and ended up getting a crew cut instead. I have been patronising this particular barber-shop for about a year because I always came out looking more presentable than the way I went in.

My regular barber was a very fat Indian guy who was very good at his craft. But when I went in yesterday, the fat guy was not there. So I was attended by another barber who was paying more attention on what was happening on TV. It was showing a Discovery documentary at the time and this guy was really more engrossed with where the animals were going in Africa than where his electric clipper is mowing on my head.

I could only cringe in my barber chair when his razor fell on the floor everytime the crocodile snapped at a gazelle or a zebra or some other animal on TV. I had wanted to get out of the chair and tell him to concentrate or yank the TV cable out of the socket. But on second thoughts, you don't normally argue with a guy holding a very sharp razor while you yourself are wrapped in a bedsheet from the neck down.

Luckily I was done before they showed the crocs mating. I paid the guy and left when the male croc was stroking its chosen mate under the neck where "no one has ever touched before" according to the TV commentator. Sheesh! Except for that crazy Australian zoo-keeper, why would anyone want to touch a croc anywhere?

At home later, I looked at myself in the mirror and realised why I hated barbers so much all this while. So I took out my own electric clipper, put on the # 4 attachment and gave myself a crew cut. Maybe I'll wear my hair long in a neat pony tail after this.