As I write this post I can see myself in the mirror and, after a hard day’s filming one thing has become clear above all others: I need a haircut. The irony though is that I’ve only just been for one… no i mean actually just been for one, not just the atypical male “I went just last year” been to one, I mean actually sat down in a hairdressers in the last two weeks whilst some bloke attempted inane chit chat with me culminating in slightly shorter hair and a rather itchy neck. The trouble is that, if I’m honest, I messed it up.
Now I’ve been a technician since I was 13, I understand computers, I understand the technical ins and outs of cameras and I have a reasonable working knowledge of physics… I can talk technobabble about a wide range of subjects. What I still, after all these years, apparently can’t understand though is hairdresser speak.
The words “what grade do you want” fill me with dread in a way that only the phrase “isn’t your dentist appointment coming up soon” can otherwise achieve. I don’t know what ‘grade’ I want! I just want my hair, my really getting quite long hair, to be less long and more… you know, short. No not really short, look Mr Hairdresser man, look at how my hair is really long and listen to how I’m not telling you to literally just shave it all off, clearly I want it short but not so short that I’d get a detention should I pop into school presumably to take part in this grading system you keep waffling on about. I guess at a push I’d say I’m looking for at least a B grade but ideally an A*. My hair is long, it used to be less long and… no I don’t know if I want the clipper or “just scissors”! Both of these implements seem adequate methods of making long hair shorter but I’m fairly sure I came to you because you, having presumably made other people’s hair shorter before attempting to make my hair shorter, probably know better than I do the best way to make hair shorter. And no, I haven’t been anywhere nice on my holidays thank you for asking.
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And that’s the other thing I hate about haircuts – the chit chat. Why must I sit and talk about stuff I have no interest in or answer questions that you have no interest in finding out the answer to? The fact that you cut hair for a living and that I have hair does not, in all likelihood, make us kindred spirits, I am probably not that one, with-haired person in the world you have been desperately searching for since setting up your male barbers for bald people because there’s at least 4 other people waiting to have their also rather too long hair strategically shortened in this very room. Except for the man dribbling in the corner, now he’s actually come for the chat.
Of course compared to women I get off pretty much scot free! Whenever Dom goes to the hairdresser with the apparent intention of just having her long hair made very slightly less long she’s in there for hours and hours! Indeed I’m fairly sure that for women there must be a third option presented to them: “would you like scissors, clippers or would you prefer we just politely asked each hair individually if it wouldn’t mind being a little less long and wait for the results?” This psychological approach to hair cutting would make sense I suppose based on the price afforded to it, I mean I may not enjoy having my hair cut but I really don’t begrudge the 6 quid it costs me, but then really you get what you pay for and for all I know having not been to a hair psychologist myself those bad hair days could easily be down to my hair having dual personality disorder.
Anyway after explaining all this the end result is that I shockingly enough didn’t quite get the style of slightly shorter hair that I was really after. I may have a neat grade something or other back and sides but, through the mysteries of hairdresser talk (and admittedly a probably rather strong emphasis on “just make it slightly less long but not really short”) I have ended up with hair that is still much too long on top, plus presumably a big (either scissor cut or clipped) “twat” across the back of my head so I’m going to have to go back and again try to explain, without talking the talk, that I would still like the long hair to be less long. I only wish that, like in that episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon is unable to visit his usual hairdresser, they actually kept “haircut records” whereby they could check what my hair should actually look like and make it like that again. Remember the time I had that stroke of genius and miraculously managed to describe accurately the type of haircut I want? Well I want that please, just check your records it should be filed under “hallelujah”.
Well, at this point I appear to have run out of narrative… so, erm… been anywhere nice on your hols?
