The Haircut

I HATE getting my haircut. I loathe going, sitting, saying what I want. I hate having to give approval on the back when he holds the mirror up and I can't stand paying and tipping. I hate the whole thing.

I always think this is due to having to sit still and not being able to move. Much like an MRI, which drives me into a frenzy. Immobility is something I detest! (See: "Issues with Meditation.")

But today as I sat still in that chair and stared straight into that mirror in the subterranean barber shop with its lights blaring as if the bar was just closing, I thought, "I hate getting my hair cut because I am forced to sit still, stare straight ahead and really see how I am aging."

If one has to take a vanity pit stop, a barber shop is a good place since it is all about grooming.

The close proximity to the untinted mirror under the bright lights forces me to really LOOK. My hair is receding MUCHO. I have blotchy skin and wrinkles. I don't see much grey, but I know this is due to shoddy eyesight and the fact that it is mostly on the sides, but "Oh, there is a TON of it!" I think-say as massive amounts of follicles that I would like to paste onto my temples come drifting down into my lap - a nasty hairy spaghetti of brown and grey.

The guy getting shaved Mafia-style in the next chair is 24 I hear him say. And his buddy is as well. The two barbers are both in their early 20s too. I could have fathered everyone else in this room!

I am the old man in the sea of youth.

There are two chairs in this shop and I realize if there were 4 of 5 chairs we could line up the stages of man and in between me and swarthy junior would be a man in his 30s and to my right would be gentlemen in their 50s, 60s and 70s.

This thought forces me to accept that I have had my time in the first two chairs and I hope I get to sit in the 4th, 5th and 6th chairs someday. But right now I am in the blotchy, receding, wrinkling 40s chair and I am doing a good thing for myself by getting a hair cut.