I write words 'n' stuff.

Haircut

I got my hair cut shorter than usual before moving to London. I knew I’d be worse off financially and a longer time before my next trim would help me save some dollar.

Three months later, and it was getting ridiculous.

Bed hair was a nightmare, styling it was an impossibility and it was always either dry and fluffy or greasy and heavy.

It was time.

Normally, I go to a salon type place for a haircut. My hair is so thick and obnoxious, it needs care and tenderness: a tailored cut from a professional to stop it getting silly and long in the wrong places. It grows outwards, not down, and this needs to be taken into consideration rather than just sheared.

Plus salons give you drinks and head massages. I’ll pay extra for that alone! I generally expect to pay around £20 for a haircut, which most blokey blokes would say is extortionate.

But this is London. If I went to a salon, I was looking at paying around £35, and after three months my finances are worse than I thought.

The alternative was…

*gulp*

…a barbers.

I had intended to walk past my local barbers and have a look in, then run away if it looked too rough. But some madness took hold of me and suddenly I was inside and sat down. In my nervousness, I’d sat directly next to the only person in the waiting area which had six other empty seats. I convinced myself that this was actually a sensible move, and now there will be no confusion as to who is next.

When my turn came around, a short tank of a man with a broken looking nose and a mohawk called me ‘boss’ and summoned me to his chair in the window. He had thick, low eyebrows and looked like he could have emerged from a Grand Theft Auto game. I noticed a sign next to my thigh that said “HOT TOWEL SHAVE AVALIABLE” (sic).

I explained that the back and sides need to go quite short because they get wild otherwise. He immediately clicked out a clipper and buzzed off a square next to my ear.

“Number four,” he said in a non-descript foreign accent.

“Uh, probably even shorter,” I said, slightly shaken up by the suddenness of cutting implements next to my temple.

BUZZ.

“Number three.”

I nodded and shrugged and spluttered out an okay. He then proceeded to clipper the back and sides of my head to this very short length without even touching the mass on top.

His phone bleeped and he turned around. I was left sat in a shop window on a busy high street looking like this:

The scary barber turned back around, pulled out a cut-throat-razor and rapidly ran it over my neck and the tops of my ears. I dared not move at all.

He then sprayed the ginger fuzz perched on the top of my head with his water bottle and massaged it in a weird circular bowl motion that moved most of the top half of my body. A sign behind him simply said “HAIRCUT SIR” in red and white letters.

The scissors made their first appearance and my eyes widened. They seemed to swipe within millimetres of my scalp, taking huge chunks of hair with them.

“I can’t really see because the sun’s in my eyes,” he said, still swiping. Marvellous.

Ginger clumps were falling onto my chest thick and fast when I realised I hadn’t actually told him how I wanted the top to be cut. He’d gone rogue. He was off the map. The outcome was anyone’s guess now.

He was frantic, like he was being timed. Scissors and comb flying everywhere and in the middle, a sudden pang of pain in the top of my ear.

I winced. It was just the comb.

“Heh, sorry,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s still there.”

My hair was now getting close to a buzzcut— all that was left was a tuft at the front for styling. This was actually how I liked it, so I was impressed.

He moved between me and the mirror.

Snipsnipsnipsnip.

Now I looked like I had a buzzcut.

He flashed the mirror at the back of my neck, but any man who says he challenges a hairdresser’s mirror flash is a damn liar. I nodded and mumbled a ‘yep’.

He tipped me out of the chair, swiped my £11 and kicked me out of the front door.

I felt used, shaky and terrified of ever getting my hair cut again. Worst of all, my head was cold.