- by Owen Morton
I went to have a haircut today. For the benefit of people who regularly read this website, who may recall that last week I put up an article saying that I went to have a haircut then as well, I would like to explain at this juncture that I’m not a mental haircut obsessive-compulsive who feels compelled to have a haircut at least once a week. The explanation is considerably simpler – I wrote that article about two months ago and then waited ages before uploading it. See? That makes more sense, doesn’t it? If only you’d stopped to think about it.
Anyway, back to today’s haircut. I didn’t enjoy it. I never enjoy haircuts. For starters, you always have to wait in a boring waiting room full of magazines deemed suitable for men to read and also suitable to be out on a table where impressionable children can get hold of them. This equates to magazines about cars and gadgets. I hate cars, or at least reading about them, which leaves gadgets. These I like a little more, but not to the extent that the people who write for magazines such as T3 do, who know every in-and-out of every sat nav that’s ever been made, why such-and-such a mp3 player was a billion years ahead of its time, which games console has a higher polygon load rate, and which Blu-Ray players emit an annoying hiss. (I don’t even understand the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD, though I do understand that within a few years they’re bloody well going to stop making DVDs which is going to require me to go through the same bloody process I did with video to DVD.)
So there I was, sitting in the waiting room, aimlessly flicking through T3 and trying to avoid the accusatory glare of the old woman opposite, who always seemed to look at the magazine when I turned a page to find a scantily clad model holding a camera, after which her gaze would slowly move up to my face, and she would shake her head to say, “He should know better,” after which my face would burn guiltily with shame, even though I didn’t do anything other than turn the page of a magazine which I wasn’t even interested in anyway, and then I’d turn the page quickly to find yet another bikini-wearing bimbo draping herself over a car, the woman would look at the magazine again, and the whole miserable thing would start again. This continued for 30 minutes. The only alternative was to watch Top Gear on the hairdressers’ TV, which as any sane person will agree, is not an alternative at all. Reading about cars is bad enough, but watching arrogant self-regarding idiots talking about them is even worse.
So let’s be honest, by the time I was called over to the chair by one of the barbers, I was not in the best of moods. The prospect of now getting my hair cut was not likely to put me in a better mood. I don’t think I’m alone in finding it a hugely humiliating experience. You’re greeted by the barber with a cheery, “Morning, sir”, which I can just about manage a sensible reply to, but then there’s the terrifying question, “And what are we doing today?”
I have never managed to answer this question satisfactorily. There have been some occasions less successful than others – notably the time I mistakenly asked for a “Number 1” all over, and was so confident in this misplaced belief that I ignored the barber’s warning response, “Are you sure?” But anyway, today, I said, “A Number 4, please.”
The response to this was one which I have never before been greeted with in a hairdressers: “Shall I do it with scissors?” Naturally, I was tempted to say, “No, with your bare hands,” but I refrained just in case he did just that. Instead, I cowered down in the seat a little and said, “Em, yes, please.” Huffing and puffing a little, the evidently affronted barber set to his task. It didn’t take him long before he fired his second question: “Tapered or straight?”
I didn’t know. Of course I didn’t know. He knew I didn’t know. Obviously, though, I pretended I knew, and said confidently, “Straight,” on the basis that I was unlikely to look too insane if it was straight, but if I went for the alternative and my hair tapered to a point in any way, there was a strong possibility I’d look like a complete wanker. My barber grunted and started snipping away again, leaving me a little time to contemplate one of my least favourite aspects of a haircut: the mirror.
People who have ever had their hair cut will of course be aware that there’s always a sodding big mirror in front of you. If you’re short-sighted like me, you have two options at the beginning of the day: 1) Wear glasses, and 2) Wear lenses. If you go to the hairdressers with your glasses on, the first thing they do is take them off you, and then you can’t see what they’re doing, so that’s right out. On the other hand, if you wear your lenses, you’re doomed to spend the duration of the haircut gazing at your own monstrous face reflected in the mirror, staring at you with a loathing expression on its face. This is because I hate haircuts so much, I always have a loathing expression on my face when I’m having one. But since I’m staring at my own loathing face, it makes me think I must loathe myself, which gets a little confusing. Occasionally, for a break, you glance away from your self-hating face, and see that reflected in the mirror from some other point in the hairdressers’ shop is the face of some grinning lunatic who’s having his hair done and is enjoying it far too much. This lunatic is never actually in the shop, just in the mirror. Try to locate him in real life and he’s not there, but he’s always there, taunting you from behind the glass.
The barber had been working away happily – well, not happily, actually, as this guy didn’t seem to do happy – for some time, before deciding to throw a spanner in the works again. This time he asked, “Do you have a parting, sir?” I do not have a parting, because when I did have a parting I looked like some nightmarish vision of the 1950s, and so was about to answer, “no”, when the barber added, “Or shall I just mess it up a bit?”
This gave me pause. I don’t think anyone ever answers, “yes”, if their hairdresser expresses a desire to “mess it up a bit”. I flicked my eyes towards his in the mirror, instead catching the gaze of the grinning lunatic, and I answered cautiously, “No parting, please.” The barber gave a crazy giggle which genuinely had me wondering whether I should leap out of the seat and run, then started trying to style my hair. This took him a good 5 minutes, after which time he asked, “Do you want something on it?” Not unnaturally, I wanted to know how he was going to define “something”. Gel, for example, would be fine. Treacle less so. I wasn’t sure how to clear this one up without portraying myself as the mental one, so I grudgingly acquiesced. Seconds later, the barber unleashed a cloud of talcum powder over me, made a few quick swipes with a blade that instantly put me in mind of Sweeney Todd, and mercifully shortly afterwards proclaimed his handiwork finished.
I examined myself in the mirror. It was a relative success. My self-loathing expression had slid away a little, and my haircut didn’t make me look like Billy Idol or Michael Stipe (though it did look a little like Louis Walsh, if I’m being honest). Moreover, the grinning lunatic seemed to be pleased with the result. I paid the Demon Barber of Fareham High Street and skulked away.
But why do barbers always have to ask you such incomprehensible questions? How’m I supposed to know if I want it tapered or straight? Why should I know what number I want? Why did this particular barber think that cutting hair with scissors was optional rather than essential? And why, above all, can’t they put some interesting reading material in the waiting room? Every part of the experience makes me want to attack someone with scissors – which I suppose could be why the barber was reluctant to get them out. I’m so annoyed, I shall not be having another haircut until next week.