AbsurdBeats

This should have been an omen.

You gonna get your head shaved? The Astor Place Hair man asked, in response to my request for a cut.

Ha ha, no. I don’t have the head-shape for it, I said, running my hand over my short-but-needed-a-trim hair.

I waited a bit, looking over the photos of famous people taped to the walls and doors, until the chair just behind and to the side of the reception desk opened up.

Just a trim, I said, but I like short bangs.

Ha ha, okay, said the cut-man. I make you see your face again. I grin-maced, took off my glasses, and settled in, waiting for him to wet down my head and ask what specifically I wanted done.

Never happened. Instead, he got out the electric razor and attacked my head.

Okay, not my head, but the hair on my head. I watched it drift down in alarmingly large patches.

You had lot of hair, said the cut-man.

I did not have a lot of hair.

No point in stopping him now. Bzzt bzzt bzzt. Thick squares of hair falling everywhere.

Now shorn, he decides it’s time for the water bottle. Now I use scissors.

Oh, now you use the scissors. When there’s nothing left to cut. Snip snip snip. Then back with the razor, bzzt bzzt bzzt. Then snip snip snip.

By this time I was telling myself It’s only hair, it’ll grow. And Hey, you always have to tell them to be aggressive, so. . . .  

Not a problem this time.

Now I see your face! the cut-man said, delighted.

There was no reason for such delight: I don’t have that great a face.

After my last cut, I said Holy moley, my hair has never been this short. Compared to this cut, that one left me looking like Rapunzel.

I’d say it’s butch, if I were at all butch-looking, which I am not. It’s just. . . very very, very very, very short. Very. Short.

Good news? It’ll be quite awhile before I need another cut. In the meantime: It’s only hair. It’ll grow.