Losing the Haircut Lottery

There's a race underway on the top of my head. It's between my gray hair and receding hair line, and at this stage, it's pretty much a draw.

I'm not much into haircuts, and have never established loyalty to a particular barber shop or salon. When it's time for a cut, I go for convenience.

Saturday we're at the ScholarShop in Webster. After about twenty minutes, I've got what I'm looking for and Kerri's still shopping. Hey, I can get a haircut! So, I take off in the car to scope out Big Bend for a salon. There's Music Folk, then KFNS, and a few doors further, sure enough, there's a hair cut shop.

It seems like hair salons are all pretty much the same. When you walk in, you're hit with a wall of air heavy from the smell of hair products, and on the coffee tables, there are stacks of style magazines filled with pictures of gorgeous models.

I look for the places with a couple stylists sitting around. As I enter this shop, it fits the bill: in the back, two ladies are reading the paper.

One stands up, gives me a big smile, and offers her hand in introduction. She asks if I'd like a shampoo, and I say "yes" and follow her to the shampoo sink. For me, the next twenty minutes will be torture. It always starts with the same question: "How do you like it?"

I don't know anything about cutting hair, and can't describe how I "like it". So I say, "Uh, take about an inch off, and make it even with the top of the ears". Okay, I know it's not much of an answer, but that's my stock reply. Next off come the glasses and for the next ten or fifteen minutes, I'm legally blind and at the mercy of the stylist.

She starts cutting. Now comes the small talk. "Do you work?" she asks. We small talk about job stuff. "Oh, that sounds interesting!" she says. Next she tells me about the 18-year old home she and her newlywed husband purchased in December in Valley Park. They wanted something "newer" and Webster Groves was too expensive.

I'm thinking about asking her how it's working out for the Valley Park City Council and their anti-illegal immigration ordinance when she starts telling me about her friends who bought an older home in St. Ann, Missouri. She said how her friends had done a lot to fix it up. I said I thought St. Ann was nice. She said how one time she and her husband got lost trying to find St. Ann, and how some people don't like "to venture". Then she said how her friends wanted to move to Valley Park, too.

I'm trying to figure out what she means by "venture" as she starts finishing up the haircut. She asks me how I like it. Everything is blurry, so she hands me my glasses. It looks a little uneven. I reach up and start mussing with it. "Oh, you like it messy!" she asks.

It has that Woody Woodpecker flip thing working in the front. "Well, I....uh...it looks a little uneven...Could you take a little bit more off the top?"

Back off with the glasses and she starts cutting some more. Her motions are more feverish this time. Now a feeling of dread starts to weigh in my gut. She stops cutting and hands me my glasses. She gives me a mirror and says, "Look at the back! The back is so important, and we never stop to look at it!". She whirls me around and I'm looking back through the mirror.

Now there's a noticeable left to right slant. "It looks good!" I say. I need to leave. "I like it!" She takes the smock thing off of me and I get up and reach for my wallet. We walk to the cashier's station and she tells me it will be $21 for today. She fills out a little temporary business card and reintroduces herself.

I leave out the front of the store, taking in a big breath of fresh air, glad to have the haircut done. Looking in the vanity mirror in the car, I can see that the bald head has built a solid lead over the gray hair.