The Barbershop Chronicles
Every time I go into my local barbershop, strange things happen.
It’s a Turkish barbers, so you get the full works. Warm towel round the face, brief and underwhelming arm massage, ear hair set alight. The flame seems to get bigger as I get older.
On the last occasion, the barber took an unusually long time to come back after wrapping the towel around my head (which is quite disconcerting as you can’t see anything, with just a tiny gap for your nose to poke through.)
Upon his return, he unwrapped the towel and waved a tiny black bottle in my face.
‘What’s that?’
‘Ah this… this is a surprise for you!’
Because everyone wants a surprise when getting their haircut.
He started shaking the bottle above my bald spot, with a slightly odd black powder appearing as he did. With every shake, he looked at me in the mirror, and winked.
Shake.
Wink.
Shake.
Wink.
Shake.
Wink, and smile.
Next, he grabbed some tiny blowers - the kind a child might get if they asked for a Dickensian dolls house fire-starting set for Christmas – and started blowing air onto my head, where the powder was collecting.
Blow.
Wink.
Blow.
Wink.
Blow.
Wink, and smile.
Then, he grabbed the mirror.
‘TA-DAA!!!’
Amazing, my bald spot had completely gone. I have no idea what the stuff was or where this magician came from, but somehow, he’d reversed twenty years of slow follicle failure.
‘Oh my God, that’s amazing!’
(Wink, and smile)
‘How long does it last? (as I hastily plan new headshots and family holidays in my head)
‘Well…’
(On tentahooks)
‘About an hour’
I look at him.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
He winks, and smiles.
‘One hour?’
‘Yep – great isn’t it! I hope you like your surprise’
What did I do with my precious hour of youth? I spent it going to pick my son up from Beavers – and then the rest of the night cleaning up clumps of black soot from various cushions and pillows around the house.
At the same barbershop:
A previously-silent barber stopped mid-cut, stared at me intently in the mirror, and said ‘You know, my favourite film is Fight Club’, then carried on cutting.
One revealed himself as an anti-Vaxxer, lent in and whispered ‘they’re trying to control us’, then went on a rant about man-made Covid – all whilst holding a cut-throat razor
One sprayed my hands with cologne. A lot of cologne.
One - who I’d never met before - welcomed me and said ‘Ah, hello Mr Sills!’ despite the fact you don’t book and only pay by cash.
One asked what I did. I panicked and said, ‘Innovation Consultant’. Thirty minutes later and he finished telling me about his idea for a new type of ice-cream van with the question ‘So, are you going to help me or not?’
One said he liked my trainers, and several times during the cut used the hairdryer to delicately remove tiny stray bits of fallen hair from them, before finishing the cut by brushing them with a broom.
Stared at me dead in the eye for a minute… then winked at me
Used one of those automatic vibrating massage things on my head whilst I had my face wrapped in a towel
Made me give him a fistbump at the end of the haircut
Can’t wait to see what happens next time….