Finally went for a hair cut on Monday. It's quiet on a Monday. The hairdresser's. Not my hair.
I can't remember when I stopped calling it the barber's. Probably when I was about 16, the last time it seemed acceptable for my peers to notice that hair had indeed been cut and, in a friendly, manly, scholarly nay jovial way, try to beat the shit out of me and offering at the same time the complex chant of "hair cut!" hair cut!" Just to welcome it, I suppose. Or say goodbye.
And I sort of remember that it was in the 80s when hairdresser's started getting all fancy and offering a menu of the exotique to us mere blokes, like mullets, foil hats and coffee with your own hair in it. It was around the mid 80s when I seemed to stop going in somewhere and plonking myself down for the slash and thrust of blade and trimmer. You would be met instead, as you are now, by the person who'll be doing the styling (I've only ever wanted a short back 'n' sides, for chrissake!), greeted, consulted, then swiftly and expertly handed over to some apprentice, or student (or the cleaner - how would we ever know?) to have your head wedged in half a sink and your hair washed. A science it must clearly be.
Over time, as with all modern consumers (except the bald ones obviously), I got used to this extended and clearly professional service, and quite liked it. I still do. "How's the water?" the washer slave will ask, and I'll say "wet", and regret it straight away, knowing full well this is neither witty nor unique. Then, some water, wet water, might trickle down the back of my ear and slide down my neck. Often, actually.
Though one time, I thought my wit and banter had struck home. A washer slave, young and pretty, female, greeted me, shook my hand (a wet fish, sadly) and sat me down. Soon she was washing my hair. Shampoo this, conditioner that, moving her fingers through my lovely, flowing locks. Slavely, wetly, fingerly. And then, to my stunned disbelief and excitement, she very deliberately slowed down the rubbing to a gentle massage from her fingertips, moving them firmly, knowingly, probingly across my eager scalp. Yes. Yes! YES!
I lay there. Tilted back, neck-wedgedly. Eyes up at the ceilingly.
Unable to swivel my head or neck or anything, and she still fingering me (what else can you call it?), I tried to look up through my head and behind at her, to make it clear the message was getting through, that the signs were clear, and that the feeling, my darling whoever you are, was mutual. "My turn next, cupcake" my eyes tried to say. "I'll do you next, if you like. I can rub you. Oh yes I can. Just you wait."
Then I pulled some sort of eye muscle. It really hurt. Panic. Now I'm a guy with one eye forever looking the wrong way. Shit. When she sees me now she'll never fancy me. "Lovely clean hair he had, " she'd tell her mum, "but he looks in both directions at once."
No. I'm ok. That was close. But I was trying so hard to look at her, my eyes must have looked completely white to anyone sitting waiting and watching. Like a zombie having a rinse. "Morning, Mr Z. The usual? Looking a bit rough, aren't we? Been on yer holidays? Anywhere nice?"
Before I remained forever bog-eyed (now blog-eyed?) and staring at my own forehead, I finally got my eyeballs back into their normal position, looked up and down, went a bit dizzy (people still watching?) and wondered about my new love, and the danger she might now be in. No other washer slave in a million hair-dos would be allowed to get away with molesting a customer like this? But what a bold and forward approach. Hey, I'm a modern bloke. She can make the first move. I'm ok with that. Thus were her advances welcome on a young, understanding, sex-starved Adonis such as myself.
But no sooner had the scene begun, the affair ended abruptly as a harsh, unforgiving towel was unceremoniously wrapped around my head. The sink was dry, the girl was gone, and I was sent packing like the Queen of Sheba with a squint. And you don't see that everyday.
No comments:
Post a Comment