It was time to get a haircut. You just know it. There is hair on the back of your neck and you can’t get your hair to comb correctly anymore. You look – in a word – scruffy. Now, I usually dread this ordeal ever since retiring from the Army. “Why?” You ask. The reason is simple. I no longer live close to a military installation and the young girls in the modern salons have a real aversion to short hair. They don’t know how to cut my hair. They are afraid of cutting too short and they always want to style my hair or put goop in it.
Back in the day, all I had to do was to sit down in a chair and the barber would simply start cutting. On a military base, where everyone who goes to the barber only has a week or two of growth and where the barber knows the standard, it’s easy. You sit down. The barber cuts. You get up and pay and you’re out of there. Five or ten minutes tops. They know you have other places where you have to be.
But, these modern salons. Hoo Boy. When you sit down, you are asked a series of questions so that the stylist will cut your hair exactly the way you want it. For me, it is always intimidating. They ask you, “Do you want a 2 on the sides?” Or some other number. And “What do you want me to do with the top?” “Square or rounded in back?” “How do you want me to blend on the sides?”
Now, for most of you, this is a natural discourse while getting your hair cut. But, it hasn’t been for me and it isn’t today. For instance, when they ask what I want on the sides, I say, “Zero.” This immediately throws the hair stylist in a panic. Even if they eventually will get to a zero, they almost certainly start out with at least a “2” on the clipper. “Why are you using a guide on your clipper?” I ask. “Oh, I’m going to just blend it up and I’ll use a zero on the bottom later.” Comes the inevitable response.
Why cut my hair twice or three times?
Back in the day, I also cut my own hair at times. Especially, when I was running late and didn’t have the time to go to the barber. Zero all around and a 2 or 3 on top. Actually, I didn’t know that I was using a 2 or a 3. I just used whatever I could grab that would give me a little bit of hair on top. It’s easy. And it’s the way that I like it. It’s the way that I am accustomed to wearing it.
When I retired, I told people that for all of my life, I was forced to abide by certain grooming standards. I wasn’t able to have long hair or a beard. Most of the time I was in the military. But, some of it was on a mission for my church or at a church school. At any rate, when I retired, I wanted to grow my hair long and have a full length beard. I started right after my retirement party. The beard lasted all of three days before it was too itchy for me to bear. The hair? Ah, yes, it gets to a certain length and I just can’t stand it. As I said at the beginning, I can’t stand to be scruffy for very long.
So, I like to keep my hair short. It agrees with my personality. It agrees with my disposition. I like it.
So, I needed a hair cut.
This particular day, I decided to go into Great Clips at our local strip mall.
As soon as I enter the door, “Welcome to Great Clips! Did you sign up only? Can I get your name?” I give the girl my name and she finds me in the computer. “It will be about 10 minutes.” She says.
When my turn finally comes, she prints out a little piece of paper. “I see that you like a Zero, is that right?” She practically stammers apprehensively. “Yes,” I tell her. “I don’t want to have this part, so please bring the zero up high. Sort of like an Army style High and Tight. A Marine’s High and Tight goes up to here.” I demonstrate with my hand. “I want you to take it up to here.” As I lower my hand a bit on my head.
She is a twenty something who lives in an Upper Middle Class neighborhood. Her hair is streaked with purple and gray. She graduated from the local high school and went to an inexpensive technical hair styling school to get her license. She is not married. She just cuts hair.
“OK” She says. And she starts cutting – with a 2!
We make small talk as she cuts. She is obviously nervous and I try to be kind. I tell her that she cannot cut it too short. I recount times when I had cut my own hair and botched it and just shaved it all off.
“The difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is about 3 weeks.” I playfully offer, for the umpteenth time.
So, she cuts my hair. No where near short enough. I can tell that she is beginning to wrap up.
“Please take this higher.” I said.
“You want me to cut it higher?” She asks.
“Yes, and please also make it a zero around my ears and up to about here.” I repeated from our earlier conversation.
So, she cuts a little more. But, this time, she is out of her comfort zone and she really botches things. My right side sticks out abruptly from my head and my left side has this cliff that just screams, “cut me!”
This time, she is hurrying quickly to finish up. She loosens the apron from around my neck and cuts the hair under the collar. I really want it shorter and better blended, so I take ahold of her hand as she is attempting to remove the apron from me for the last time and state, “Let’s cut a little more, shall we?
“Sure,” she says. “Just a minute.”
She then goes to a back room and beckons for another girl to come with her.
I sit in the chair with this abysmal hair cut for about 5 minutes. Just waiting. When the other girl comes to me.
“So, what would you like for me to do to fix your haircut?” She asks cheerfully.
“You’re kidding!” I say. “You mean that [her name] is so upset that she isn’t coming back?”
“It’s not you,” the new girl says. “Sometimes we just have bad days.”
So, I explain once more what I would like and the new girl starts cutting.
She had to cut a bit more than I had originally wanted. But, it was still good. “Because of this and that, I’ll have to bring it up higher in order to blend it. Is that OK?” she asks.
“Sure.” I said.
Turns out that she is married to a Marine who is deployed. She has no problem cutting my hair as short as I want it. She fixes it all up and it looks great.
But, while she is cutting, we can hear from the back room the most outrageous sobbing and crying. I mean, the girl sounded like she was at her mother’s funeral!
“Is she. . . crying?” I ask. “I swear I tried to be as pleasant as possible. What in the world?”
“It’s OK.” The new girl said. “It isn’t you. She’s just having a tough day and she doesn’t know how to cut short hair.”
The new girl finished up and we had the next patron take our picture.
“Show this to [her name].” I said. It turned out great and it is as short as I wanted.
“I will.” The new girl said.
I even tipped both the original girl and the new girl. It was the only thing that I knew to do in that situation.
“See you next time!” The new girl said.
“Not likely.” I thought. I need to go to a military installation next time.
My point in recounting this story is that I have heard said that the modern millennials are fragile. This story emphasized that there are fragile people out there. People who cannot handle even polite criticism. Cannot handle fulfilling needs of others when it is not within their personal paradigm.
The first girl cutting my hair was a wreck. Over a haircut! And I was really trying to be as nice as I could about it.
We need to teach our children how to work, yes. But, we must also teach them how to be flexible and adaptable. They need to be able to deal with uncertainty. Not crumble because of it.
I truly felt sorry for the first girl. What a contrast to the second girl who cut my hair. But, it was not my fault. It was just a hair cut.
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