{"id":1578,"date":"2013-08-01T05:03:27","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T03:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1578"},"modified":"2017-08-16T18:16:34","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T16:16:34","slug":"the-other-barber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1578","title":{"rendered":"The Other Barber"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Sir Alec doing his impression of me after every visit to the other barber<\/p><\/div>\n

There are two barbers in my hometown. And every year, my interaction with them is exactly the same. This year is no different. It\u2019s Tuesday and I am suddenly overwhelmed by one idea: Get a haircut. Today. Now. Next, I sit up \u2013 I am usually prone on my vacation \u2013 and put down my fattening drink. Then lie back and go over the two barbers in my head.<\/p>\n

There is the good barber. The good barber is busy and has the ability to cut hair. The good barber has a full barbershop all the time. The people wait there in glee, their overgrown locks begging to be shorn by a competent hairsmith. The good barber has technology, magazines from this century, and a mirror not covered in wallet sized high school graduation pictures. He serves drinks. I love the good barber.<\/p>\n

The other barber stares out his window all day long. The other barber cleans his combs for two hours a day and organizes his table covered by Field & Stream<\/i> and Highlights<\/i> issues from the 1980s. The other barber has an \u2018all or nothing\u2019 approach to cutting hair. He talks about his medical problems, he points them out. I do not love the other barber.<\/p>\n

I walk up to the good barbershop and it all begins. The good barber is closed; a small plastic clock in the door tells me he\u2019ll be returning at 12:15. It is 12:25. I knock. The good barber does not answer. I peer through a pane at the cozy interior with the longing of a kid looking into the lobby of FAO Schwarz. There\u2019s a frosty pitcher of something red, a glossy magazine. I sit on the stoop and open my book, but I know the good barber isn\u2019t coming. Every year the good barber teases me with some variation of this situation: opening late, closing early, off for lunch, Monday.<\/p>\n

This wouldn\u2019t be a big problem for a normal person. A normal person would shrug, go home, come back the next day. A normal person would go for a Frappuccino and come back in twenty minutes.<\/p>\n

But I am not normal; I am an idiot.<\/p>\n

For some reason when I have decided to get a haircut, nothing will stand in my way. It must happen immediately. Not in twenty minutes. Not tomorrow. Now.<\/p>\n

And so (at 12:34) I step off to the other barber.<\/p>\n

I reach the other barber in thirty seconds and he greets me at his window as I approach. He looks at me hopefully and when I open the door he looks at his watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have time for a cut?\u201d I ask. We both know he does, but he appreciates the gesture.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure.\u201d He points to the chair.<\/p>\n

I look in the mirror in front of me, and start making faces. I am framed by no less than two hundred high school graduation photos, leaving about four square inches for my mirrored self. I sigh.<\/p>\n

The other barber starts to cut without asking what I want to be done to my hair, immediately going into a hip replacement procedure. When I try to interrupt, he shows me a tick bite. The other barber moves around my head and nips at it with decade old clippers. He is making a grimace which suggests that I have turkeys mating in my scalp. I do not react to any of this. I close my eyes, let the inevitable happen. I curse my tendency towards instant gratification.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

I open my eyes as he touches my hair gingerly, as though it\u2019s a house of cards that will collapse under the strain of touch or air. There is no difference between my hair now and when I walked in the door six minutes ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you take a little more off?\u201d I close my eyes again as he lays into my hair with his clippers. It\u2019s as though he now has decided to cut my hair. When I open my eyes again, I am glad for the mirror\u2019s limited scope. I can tell that my sideburns aren\u2019t even and my hair is short. I look like a Monchhichi.<\/p>\n

The other barber brushes on the talc, and, though we both know I shouldn’t, I thank him. Then I step outside and implore the heavens with a “My God, what have I done!” that it realistic enough to be done near a bridge, the River Kwai, and William Holden. Then I leave, wondering if the good barber is still serving drinks.<\/p>\n

Ever get bitten by your obsessions, folks?
\n<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are two barbers in my hometown. And every year, my interaction with them is exactly the same. This year is no different. It\u2019s Tuesday and I am suddenly overwhelmed by one idea: Get a haircut. Today. Now. Next, I sit up \u2013 I am usually prone on my vacation \u2013 and put down my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/bbh.jpg?fit=602%2C244&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-ps","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1578"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3973,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions\/3973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}