Special Hair Service

So there I was, sitting in one of my least favourite places in the world, staring at an amorphous blob in the mirror.

The place was my barber shop and the reason that I was staring at a pale blurred alien-type creature was that it was the time when I had to get my hair cut.

I hate having my hair cut – worse I hate my hair full stop (regular readers will know this).

One of the reasons my hair gets into the sorry state it was in on this particular occasion is that I delay and delay having it cut until I can’t bear my hair any longer and having it removed is better than it taking over my entire head.

Even when my hair is short, it is unmanageable. It is like a wild sentient mop of curly spaghetti that refuses all attempts to get it to behave itself.

When I get up in the morning, I dread looking in the mirror because I wonder what shape it has assumed overnight. A lot of the time, Mrs PM will just smile and say:

“Look at your hair.” 

She will chuckle because that is usually my cue to start a humorous rant about how awful it is. She will watch as I try to tame it with a brush before going into the shower to get the big boys on the job (shampoo and water).

However, there have been occasions when I have been in such a hurry that I have showered, towel dried my hair, got dressed and left the house without having brought it under control.

I arrive at my destination (usually work) and wonder why people are sniggering at me.

 “Is that a wig, Dave, or have you picked up an alien on the way to work?”

Worse, I then have to go to the bathroom and try to tame the mess on my head with a little water and my fingers and usually I end up making it ten times worse – and this is even when it is bloody short!

You would think that I would be used to it after 56 years of pain – but no! I’m not. Every day is a challenge – every day my hair finds new ways to hurt and surprise me by mutating into something inhuman and horrific.

I can sense your next question, dear reader.

“Why don’t you just shave it off?”

Believe me I have considered it. The problem is that some people actually like it. These strange people are members of the opposite sex who on occasion have actually said things like:

“Your hair is lovely and thick!””

“I wish I had hair like yours!”

Mrs PM will not allow me to have it short – she prefers it as it is (for some crazy reason).

So why do I hate having my hair cut when in reality it makes my unmanageable mop more controllable?

Several reasons:

(1) I hate waiting for anything. My local barber does a pretty good job and I feel loyal to them but if I time it badly, I end up having to wait behind quite a few people. The magazines available are all men’s magazines full of cars, weight-lifters, pictures of semi-naked women or all three so I have to read my phone.

(2) While waiting, I have to check every bugger who comes in. If the place is really busy I have to make sure that none of them queue jump when one of the hairdressers says “Who’s next?”. So I can’t really concentrate on my phone at all.

(3) When I finally sit down I am throttled by the gown they make me wear. I see pictures of handsome men with magnificent hair and super trendy hairstyles and I know if I asked for one of those I would look nothing like them – just a stupid old git with a mad haircut. So I ask for my usual style – which is a bit dull but it works.

(4) When I am asked what I want, I have to take my glasses off – hence staring at an amorphous blob in the mirror. I can’t see myself at all – in fact I am so paranoid that I am not 100% convinced that the person I am staring at is actually me or somebody in the building next door peering at me.

(5) I can’t see what they are doing with my hair. I have asked for my usual style and then he or she has set to work lopping off my locks. First my hair is so unmanageable that it has to be drenched with water which, despite their best efforts always ends up in my face or running down my neck. Even if the barber were to shave all of my hair off, I would have no clue. If I ended up with a weird Mohican I would be oblivious.

(6) I have to have an inane conversation about holidays, work, football or all three. That’s not so bad but when I talk to somebody I like to look at them and without my glasses the barber is just another amorphous blob wandering around me. I can’t even tell whether the barber actually has eyes.

(7) When he or she has finished, I will be asked what I think and no matter how bad it looks I will invariably say “Perfect!”. To be fair, they usually do a grand job but I am still haunted by the memory of the mad woman who cut off my mullet in the 1980’s – I still have nightmares about it.

At least when my hair has been cut I have a couple of weeks when I can jump out of bed and mock my hair telling it to do its worst.

That’s right, dear reader – I talk to my hair.

My next visit to the barber will be in a couple of weeks when I have to queue up with everybody else wanting a wonderful style for Christmas.

It’s either that, or spend the weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year doing battle with my mop armed only with wax and a lot of patience.

What a choice!

I really hate my hair!

Bad Hair Day

Every single day is a proverbial bad hair day for me. I absolutely loathe my hair. In fact I’ve hated it ever since I can remember. Furthermore I am convinced that my hair is a sentient monster that hates me right back.

When I was a boy, my hair was platinum blond and wildly uncontrollable. Old women would grab it and pull it and utter squeaks of delight as they ran their fingers through my locks.

“Oh doesn’t he have gorgeous hair,” they would cry. My mother revelled in the attention for her first born and actually cut bits off for family and close friends. Somewhere in Walsall there is an old dusty chest with a lock of my hair in it.

Mercifully, my dad came to my rescue and dragged me down to the barber shop. He wasn’t happy about the blond jungle on my head and instructed the maniac with scissors to shave off every last lock.

I was too young to care but I do recall not being too perturbed about my appearance. The maniac didn’t remove every follicle; he left most of them extremely short. From a distance I appeared to be bald. Those were happy days.

My mother soon put a stop to my father’s exploits and allowed my hair to grow again. By now, we had left the sixties and entered the seventies, a decade resplendent with dreadful styles. I didn’t have a style as such. My hair took on a life of its own. As I passed through my teenage years, I rebelled and allowed my hair to take control.

“Get your hair cut,” my Mum would say.

“No,” I would reply. “It’s the fashion.”

Fashion? I was really stupid as a teenager.

At the age of seventeen my hair was huge. Unlike the rock stars I loved so much, my hair wasn’t just long. It defied gravity and stood on end as if I were a victim of a constant and relentless electric shock. One of my teachers hated it.

“Dunk your head in a bucket of water, boy,” he bellowed much to the amusement of the rest of the class. “You look like a chrysanthemum.”

That hurt! What if girls thought the same? Was this the reason why ladies didn’t appreciate my good looks?

I decided on a piece of radical action. I was ready to start university as the eighties approached. I decided to have it styled.

I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I walked into the stylist and noticed that there were no scissor-wielding maniacs in sight. The stylist screamed in terror.

“Boy this is going to be a challenge,” she said.

My hair was washed (or as I prefer to think of it – drowned) and once subdued, the stylist attacked it as if it were a mad beast. The stylist made me remove my glasses so I sat there in the chair staring at a very blurred image of myself being attacked. I had no idea what was going on; all I could see was blond hair cascading to the floor. By the time the stylist had finished two hours later, there was a mountain of blond curls.

Having disposed of 95% of my hair, the stylist did something that I had yet to experience – she blow dried my hair. When I put on my glasses I was amazed. I looked human. Girls would love me. My hair was under control for the first time in my adolescent life.

Off I went to university and for three years I was happy with my haircut.

I left that establishment still in control and started work. And let my hair take control again (foolish bumpkin that I am). The eighties was the decade of the mullet – and I embraced it with gusto.

I let my hair grow at the back and explode on the top. At the sides I shaved it to within an inch of its life. I looked in the mirror and beamed with pride. I looked like a goon.

For three years I walked around proud that I had a celebrity hairstyle. People thought I was a fool. I loved that mullet. I used to blow dry it, comb it, fondle it and even use hairspray. That’s right, I used to use hairspray (I can’t believe that I have confessed to that – don’t laugh; I’m baring my soul here).

And then came that fateful day when I visited my stylist. She was on holiday and one of the young pretenders took her place. The year was 1988.

“Shall I square this off for you?” she said sweetly.

“Of course,” said I, having switched off my brain.

She took the scissors and destroyed my mullet. I stared in stupefied shock as my blond locks tumbled down onto the floor.

“How’s that?” she said.

I should have screamed “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

I squeaked “Yes, that’s terrific thanks”

It was a turning point. My hair became short and has stayed that way ever since.

Many men my age regard my hair with envious eyes. I have a full head of curly, unmanageable hair that has darkened with age. If I let it grow it literally explodes. One day it is short, the next it has become a blond afro. These days I have to go to get it cut so often that I simply go the barber who, for a small price, cuts it down to size with scissors and a razor. I am still in shock about the loss of my mullet, even though people tell me that she did me an enormous favour. I was happy with that mullet – it was like losing a pet.

I have said in a previous post that I will not use products, but Mrs PM insists that I use wax to placate my rampant locks. Hair wax is horrible stuff and I avoid it when I can, sneaking out of the house before Mrs PM can spot me unleashing my bushiness onto the world at large.

I have suffered because of my hair; cruel children and adults have called me a variety of names over the years – each one related to the shape, colour and sheer volume of my thick unmanageable hair. Here are some of them:

Hair Bear

Snowy

Chrysanthemum

Pubehead

Boggy (as in bog-brush head)

A couple of years ago I heard some of the young lads at the office humming the theme from Shaft whenever I walked past. One of them confessed that they called me “The White Shaft”.

Oh the shame.

Still, I have come to terms with my hair in recent years. I still hate it and it still hates me but we have a non-aggression pact between us. I have the upper hand. If it gets ideas above its station I just threaten to bring back the mullet.