This was supposed to happen years ago and never did, until this week: you cut your own hair.
I shouldn’t be surprised, given that you are your mom’s son, and she cuts her hair consistently. Every few months, I’ll walk into the bathroom and find your mom following a YouTube video, cutting inches off her hair. She leaves up to half a foot of hair she couldn’t reach in the back, which I help clean up. This is all based on her humble upbringing and unwillingness to spend more than $100 for a good haircut, which she can mostly do herself.
After you took a bath, I found the aftermath of your scissor experimentation. You cut your wet hair straight across, leaving bangs resembling Jim Carrey’s character in Dumb & Dumber. You were proud of yourself initially because, well, you did it. You cut your hair. Unfortunately, you didn’t think through cutting wet hair, which sits longer, and how your hair would look drier and shorter. This is also in the context that you’ve been growing out your hair, especially on the sides and back, so the rest of your hair was quite a bit longer than your new bangs.
After cycling through some mixed emotions about the ordeal, we agreed that I could get you into my barber to “finish” the haircut a couple of days later. You’ve been to barbers many times before but not this particular barber that I’ve been seeing since we’ve lived in Gig Harbor.
I took some classic, fatherly pride in taking you to my barber. The barber for some men is almost like church. There’s a community and trust there. It’s where you take your stories and hear stories. Your motivations were more elemental. The barbershop has a pet squirrel named Amanda that they hand-feed when it comes by for a snack. Although we arrived in the 7 a.m. hour on a cold February morning, the squirrel arrived for her morning snack, and you got to enjoy the wildlife while the head barber and shop owner, Mark, took care of shaping your mane. We left a little “party in the back” at your request, and you got a lollipop when the job was done.
Like I told you on the car ride home, seeing a barber is part of taking care of yourself. You’ll want to see him or her every 4-6 weeks, plan to pay cash, and know that your mom will always be excited to see your fresh look. Maybe you’ll inspire her to see a hairdresser regularly, too.
Love,
Dad