Hairdressing adventures

Back in the day, my mom would tell me stories of how she had served as the occasional hairdresser in her youth, providing much needed grooming services free of charge to the aunties in her community. At that time, everybody apparently sported the same blunt communist era haircut. Grannies would get a bob cut, and girls would tie up longer hair in pigtails. “You just had to cut it straight”, she would say.

Anecdotally, my dad has also been cutting his own hair for decades. His tools of the trade are stored inside an ancient egg roll cookie container, along with a rainbow stripe colored sheet, used as a barber cape. Every few months, he would fish out the manual hair clipper and scissors to freshen up. The style is not exactly in vogue, but it is presentable and the only look I’ve ever seen him sport in my lifetime. I’d call it, functional dad hair.

Well who knew that COVID19 would practically shut down the entire economy, hair salons and barber shops included? Nick had started to pester me 2-months in about hair that was growing over his ears, and the mullet that he was starting to sprout. “Can you just cut around my ears?” he would ask. I knew that he was going to end up with a bowl cut if he planned to rely on my skills.

Given the experience and talent available to us, I suggested to Nick that, naturally, he should consider getting a haircut from my mom, using my dad’s haircutting tools! Unfortunately, Nick was not sold on this idea. He was staunchly unconvinced of my mom’s hairdressing credentials and “did not want to have my dad’s haircut”. Instead, he turned to the world of YouTube for advice on his hairdressing adventures.

Based on “research”, Nick decided to use his beard trimmer as a hair clipper, as it came with an accessory guard.  The guard provided only one trim length, whereas his existing haircut had a gradient of longer hair at the top and front, and shorter cuts at the sides and back. How would this strategy provide a different cut than my dad’s look? I didn’t say anything.

Well not long ago, I watched a video of a guy who started cutting his hair using a beard trimmer and the battery died part way through. Yes, then this exact thing happened to Nick. Apparently, his old beard trimmer was not designed for cutting hair. The battery was already weak, and ended up dying from the added burden. He had to wear a baseball cap for a week while waiting for Amazon to ship him a new beard trimmer. His colleagues even commiserated on a Zoom call with their own baseball caps in solidarity– ha!  

Thankfully, the new trimmer arrived just in time for him to clean up his act before officiating a wedding on Saturday. Now he just has a long Eminem buzz cut, like my dad.

---

Get notified for new posts by subscribing!