“Yeah I guess I should have known it would happen. I asked for it anyway. Or,” he paused, “I asked for something that I didn’t understand, or thought I understood but in retrospect didn’t, then got what I should have anticipated in the first place.“
“That sounds rather complicated for a haircut.”
“It wasn’t a haircut, per say, more of a hair amputation.”
“How do you amputate something that grows back? Wouldn’t that be considered shedding?”
“No, well the problem was that only some of it was growing back and only in some areas. My hair had been thinning since I was a senior in highschool. I was able to hide it for most of college, but by graduation the writing was on the wall. I could still keep some people fooled, but that number was decreasing precipitously.”
“But the number of people who cared about the thickness of your hair was stable, I’d imagine, hovering around zero. Not to be mean, but I’d bet the farm not many people care about the hair of others.”
“I’d be inclined to agree. Problem was there was one person who was very interested in the decline of my hair thickness- me. Unfortunately that’s one asshole I have to deal with daily. It began to become the entirety of how I saw myself.”
“That’s crazy man, you’re jacked as shit, a real meat castle, I was with you on the beach when women damn near swooned at the sight of you.”
“That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I can’t really argue with you there. The ladies, or the subsect of ladies who like muscly guys do seem to take an extra interest in me. Problem was, again, that voice that turned my thoughts to my hair at the exclusion of all beneath.”
“So you went to the barber and said off with it.”
“Pretty much.”
“And it didn’t go as expected?”
“Well, I guess as expected to some degree. It was an old school barber place. One of those places that really takes good care of you, the straight razor shave, shoulder rub after. The closest thing to a day of beauty most men with our shared fragile sense of masculinity would grant themselves. It was a Turkish guy, apparently one who has won a ton of awards and was flown over here with his family by the shop owner to ply his trade.”
“Flown from Turkey to Seoul to shave people? Fuck, that’s a new one on me.”
“Not if you saw this guy, fucking Maradona of barbaring. It was incredible. Best shave I’ve ever had, the massage at the end was fantastic too. The head shave, though, was wild. He buzzed me down, then rubbed vaseline on my head. Shaved using that shit as the shaving cream, then mother fucking buffed my dome with a towel like it was a fucking car bumper.”
“I did notice you have a certain chrome-like shine.”
“I know it’s wild. So I thought I knew what to expect, just not exactly that.”
“Shaved but not buffed to a shine.”
“Exactly, though, not gonna lie. I think I like it that way. Let’s say I was pleasantly surprised.”
