30 April 2008
For some reason I prefer my hairdresser (and my gp and my car mechanic) to be older than I am. Someone who is responsible for something as important as my appearance, at least needs to act like every tiny cut is a deeply considered and wise decision. Ideally they should have low, soothing voices like they know what they are doing. Also too many questions at the start of ‘a session’ are by definition unacceptable. Males even have a better chance to make it to my favorite hairdresser (or fav gp and car mech).
Now I am not one who often goes to the hairdresser. This week it was Frank’s turn, who has been hairdresser free for a long time, but he have the same preferences as I do. Of course he has, otherwise we were no couple. Obviously this is one of the first things discussed before you start a relationship, isn’t it?!
“Do you mind if I meddle with your choice of hairdresser the rest of your life?”
“That’s okay. Do I need to dye your outgrowth every 6 weeks the rest of your life? ”
“Yes, you should. And children? ”
“Neu. And you?”
“Neu, no children”.
“Well, then we can work it out, huh?”
“Yes, we are ready then.”
“Shall we begin?”
“Yeah, let’s get started.”
One of the first serious favorite hairdressers I had in my adult life, was an old, small, ugly and skinny fellow, but he had a great ascendancy over his customers. Exactly what I was searching for. He made the impression of being quite convinced of what needed to be done. Consequently I directly think that someone is a professional.
I entered his small salon, where I only saw 1 boy waiting on the bench and another single customer sitting in the dental chair. Yes, a dental chair. I was seated next to the waiting boy. When the hairdresser turned his back to us to continue his work, I saw he was wearing a long, gray and partly red dyed braid of about 1 meter.
When a third boy wanted to enter the shop, the hairdresser didn’t allow him to come inside, before the boy in the chair was ready. The barber shouted that he would not be gaped by three people at once. For safety’s sake, I pointedly looked down to my hands clenched around the handbag on my knees.
After fifteen minutes the rosy-cheeked blonde boy in the chair was ready and he got released with a free orange-colored tin. “Oh great! Free stuff.” I thought. “Maybe I’ll get something too”. The barber beckoned me into the chair, not deigning a glance to the waiting boy beside me -who actually came in before me.
“Because she is new,” said the hairdresser to no one in general.
“Haha,” I said.
“Haha,” said the waiting boy.
“Haha,” said the barber.
“Can I come in now?” asked the boy who was waiting outside.
I made a kind of rueful grimace to the waiting boy and quickly sat down.
The boy who had waited outside was now allowed to come in and got a broom pushed into his hands. He was ordered to clean up the cutted hair of the blond boy. “Then I can work faster!” said the barber. Otherwise you sitting there doing nothing.
By now I realized the customers in this shop were not supposed to have an opinion, so with a waving gesture to the barber I said: “Do whatever you like.” I tried to look as if I was very occupied by my own very important thoughts, and now I also had a good view on that pile of orange tins. Oh, it was African straightening cream. What a matching gift for the rosy-cheeked blonde boy.
An hour later I left the chair with dark purple pointy sideburns. It looked very adventurous and I found it very beautiful. The barber himself was very pleased too and he decided that the rest of that afternoon he only wanted to do dye-jobs. Anybody who wanted something else had to go away.
To my slightly surprise, the still waiting boy and the boy with the broom, didn’t stir a finger. Not annoyed, not anxious, not excited. In a split second I tried -as unobtrusively as possible- to scan the room looking for a candid camera. Was I the one who had put herself into something weird? And was it my fault that these guys probably did not have a proper haircut that day.
