how’s this for a gripping opening line: “yesterday, i had the oddest haircut.”
let me qualify that: i’ve had my fair share of curious coifs back home — attributable, i’ve always said, to whatever fast-and-loose franchising policy drives the relentless expansion of the so-called Fantastic Sams’ grooming enterprise.
this was a tad different: i was playing ‘barbershop roulette’ of sorts, by walking into a barbiere at random, but — keeping the metaphorical safety on — i requested they simply shear my head with clippers (and at the basically-bald ‘0’ setting). hairdo-wise, that’s a tough one to screw up.
and screw-ups there weren’t: i walked out the door with exactly the super-short buzz cut i had in mind stepping in. but getting there, on the other hand…
ever seen those East-German or Russian-made flashlights that don’t need batteries, but instead have a hand-crank built into the grip? it’s a tiresome affair, but if you repeatedly squeeze one fast enough, it throws off enough light to get you around in a blackout. (you’ll find them today at yuppie-friendly Restoration Hardware, of all places.)
so turns out the poor barber’s clippers worked on the same principle, but completely mechanical throughout. and he had a whole set of ‘em, all covered in bright chrome and really heavy-looking, each for a different hair length. obviously, this barber was a terribly old fellow, but his wrinkled hands got those things running pretty speedily, so that they’d whirr like a push lawnmower.
(looking back on it, i now recall seeing men getting their hair cut with similar clippers in pokhara, nepal — but that town was used to being without electricity for days at a time.)
well, anyhow, it was weird. and in fact somewhat unpleasant, since the clippers’ blades pulled a bit, making it feel more like a manually-powered depilatory device than a hair-trimmer. but the barber was about as nice as they get, and he and i talked about the weather some.
