Just a little higher here, straighter there

I went to get my hair cut for the first time in several months today. Some might say it had been 7 to 8 months since I last cut my hair. It was becoming unruly, and I wasn't thrilled with that, but I was just too lazy to go and get it taken care of. Finally, I did it today.

I went to New Century salon. It sounds either ultra-chic or dive. It was dive. There were two chairs in a hole in the wall just two blocks from my house, but it got the job done. When I arrived, I had to navigate my way through the door in an awkward manner because a gentleman was standing right in the doorway, staring intently at a boy who was getting his hair cut by one of the stylists. I'm not sure if it was the kid's father, uncle, adopted father, family friend, or what, but he was clearly very intent on watching every move that the boy's stylist made. The man stared at the activity without ceasing, sometimes moving around to inspect from a different angle.

Once I was seated in the second chair, I couldn't really watch what the man was doing except for what I could make out in the mirror, but he started getting really into the cut. As the boy's stylist was almost complete, the man started walking full circles around the boy, inspecting every inch of his head. "Straighten out this line," the man would say to the stylist who immediately went to work. The man continued walking around, inspecting, frequently walking up to the boy and moving his head back and forth, up and down. "I'm just trying to see if the two sides are even," the man said. After comparing the two sides of the boy's head, the man told the stylist, "take this side up a little more. The other side is already higher and it needs to be even." The stylist complied with every demand that the man made, and some of them were ludicrous. I'm not kidding when I say that the man was twisting and turning the boy's head examining the work of the stylist. The man also kept calling the stylist "lady." For example, he would say, "that's good lady," or "here you go lady."

When FINALLY the stylist was told that her work was "close enough," the boy was allowed to stand. Apparently the stylist's job of blowing out the loose hair wasn't satisfactory, because the man took the boy and vigorously shook his head and batted his hands through the boy's hair. Then he started rubbing the boy's head against his chest, as if his shirt had some special "hair attraction" power that would pull out all of the loose hair.

When this ritual was completed, the boy and the man left. It was perhaps one of the strangest hair cut experiences I've had. Oh boy do I feel sorry for that kid, though!