When Your Barbershop Becomes a Beauty Salon

Sad times. So I went to get my monthly cut at my barbershop, eeer or so I thought. I was heading down toward the entrance and walked past this fancy shop where I thought I saw my barber out of the corner of my eye. I take two steps past, stop, then take two steps back; I recognize, smile then walk in.

I say "what's this?!?!? Nice, but I came to get my haircut at a barbershop, not a beauty salon." My Barber smiles a slightly awkward and slightly bashful grin and tells me to "shut up and sit down." Yes, still brash. I sit down and begin to look around. The old shop is still intact with a small area of the wall knocked-thru connecting the two. The new shop has high ceilings, roman columns, deco-plaster and Maplewood décor. There are also new black marble sinks throughout and new black leather seats. All the barbers/stylists are dressed in new black aprons. There also appears to be a massage station placed in the corner. Fancy, but I'm thinking as long as the price is the same it is still cool.

I'm up. I go to sit down. Some guy comes to sweep the last customer's. You know what he looks like. Wait! They hired someone to do this? The numbers guy in me is thinking new budget? Investors? New partner? I thought she was struggling like the rest of us… As the new guy approaches to do his job she quickly grabs the broom from him and sweeps the station herself. Yeah I know.

I sit down. Small talk. Then she leans in to ask me --- would I like my eye-brows trimmed? "HELL NO. Absolutely not. No way." Awkward laugh. She responds: "it will be just a minor trim and it will only be 7 extra dollars." I'm like "no, I am not ready for all that. Plus I think my eyebrows are fine, plus my friends would notice. I can't just show up with trimmed eye brows." We exchange a few more words, with a minor interruption with some new stylist co-signing, and then proceeded with the usual cut.

Everything else was normal --- only other thing I observed was her business cards were different --- yep "[her] salon"

I paid for the cut and this hair product I love and left. 60 bucks. Slightly more expensive; I didn’t ask whether it was the cut or the product that went up – she said something about taxes which I didn't quite understand (she's an older Italian women so I only catch every third word).

Afterword:

This entire blog-entry was almost negated by the very next event that happened when I got home. The point of the entry was me sort of making fun of my barber for somewhat selling out and getting fancy ---especially during a recession. Then my new roommate steps out to get toilet paper. He comes back with toilet paper AND baby wipes. I'm like, WTF. He explains they will change my life.

I am about to make fun, then he hits me with ill-logic. I am always susceptible to ill-logic Simply he tells me that his sister-in-law explained it to his brother this way: if you had shit on your hand would you simply wipe it off with dry toilet paper and go on with your day or would you wash your hand?

I am not quite ready for the baby wipes, but have been suspiciously tying my number two to my shower time(s). You can't just tell Mr. OCD something like that without any affect.

Ugh!