“would you like your hair shampooed? it’s free with the haircut.”
translation: do i want this beautiful young woman with the huge brown eyes and the foxy little body to caress and massage my head with soapy warm water?
“sure,” i shrugged.
i just paid 18 bucks to get a haircut. plus a tip. a pretty good haircut, i’ll admit, but i’m not the type to pay that much so i probably won’t go back to the JC Penney salon anytime soon--even if they do have impossibly hot hair stylists.
is there some unwritten rule that barbers must be closed on mondays? is there some secret unwritten barber's code? my usual barber was closed today for some reason, so i looked up some other numbers in the yellow pages and struck out about half a dozen times. just about everyone was closed except for JC Penney.
and forget about finding someone to use a straight razor to shave your neck--hardly anyone does that anymore except for the old-time barbers--you know, the ones that still have the barber poles, the 2-3 old men that sit there all day, and the jar of leeches on the counter. (well, maybe not the leeches. personally, i’d shy away from any barber shop that is still equipped with leeches.)
the hardest part is finding the balance between old-school barber and metrosexual styling salon. there aren’t many places that still have the balls to whip out the straight razor and also style your hair at the same time. i prefer to have the top textured. most leech-wielding, old-school barbers will look at you like you’re a raging mega-fag if you ask for anything more than the clippers and a little snip-snip.
i still miss the Shoppingtown Barber & Styling Center in syracuse. Vinny* did it all--the neck shave, the metro-styling, everything. he even used the straight razor to texture the top. i don’t know how he did it without lacerating my scalp, and that’s why he’s the man. he even had that little thing on the counter that heated up the shaving cream and he also had the hot towels. --aaaand he also knew the difference between a new, in-style haircut vs. a frumpy-old-man haircut, and could adjust according to the customer. and it wasn’t all that expensive either. damn, i miss that place.
*not to be confused with the late Vinny K., my friend from up here.
BUG'S BLARF BONUS POINT QUESTION O' THE DAY:
what is the significance of the barber pole?
SUPER BONUS BUG BLARF QUESTION:
what the hell do leeches have to do with the barber pole?
