Saturday, February 13, 2010

My hair has been especially shaggy the last couple months. At some point it passed from Your Short Haircut Is Too Long into a wholly different Your Long Haircut Is Too Short. Around that point Hank commented that she liked seeing me with longer hair, so, since accommodating her merely required additional laziness, I agreed to let my hair grow out a bit more. There is no limit on how lazy I'm willing to be to please my wife.

Well, virtually no limit. Although inertia is the cornerstone of my wife-pleasing capabilities, this week I couldn't stand the shagginess any more, so I marched into a barber shop near work that I had visited a few times before. It's not a great place to get a haircut, but cutting my hair isn't really rocket science. I'm pretty sure I get Haircut 1A on the chart.

The barber (who was kind of an ass), did what appeared to be a reasonable job and I soon headed back to work. It was only an hour later, when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror that I discovered the horror. I left the bathroom, and for the next couple hours I carefully positioned my head in all coworker conversations so as to minimize any chance that they'd spot the horrendous flaw. Eventually I got tired of hiding my hair.

Me: Ashton, you want to know what's been annoying me all afternoon?
Ashton: I do.
Me: Tell me what's wrong with my haircut.
Ashton: You really want to do this?
Me: I'm not talking about whether or not you like my hairstyle. I'm talking about an objective flaw in the haircut. This is not a subjective thing.

Ashton eyed me critically, shaking his head while silently evaluating my appearance.

Ashton: Well, one side is kind of poofier than the other
Me: Nope, that's not it. That's just from me running my hand through that side.
Ashton. Hmmm....
Me: ....
Ashton: Oh, god!

And then he busted up.

Somehow, inexplicably, the barber who kicked off my haircut by barking at me that he had been cutting hair for 28 years and knew what he was doing, managed to tidy up one of my sideburns, and completely remove the other one. I was no longer bilaterally symmetrical, one of the hallmarks of being a successfully functioning mammal.

One side of my head looked like this:


And the other side looked like this (note that the shadow here makes it look like maybe I have sideburns there, but rest assured, I do not)


There's like an inch difference! Total haircut fail.

7 comments:

Mike Duffy said...

Time to shave your head, Mike!

Sister--Helen said...

Oh My!!hahahahahaha

Mike said...

Mike, I don't think that's a look I can pull off. My head needs hair.

4th Sis, as always, thanks for the kind words. :)

Sue said...

I especially enjoy your expressions in the photos.

Mike said...

Thanks, Sue. I do enjoy a good grimace.

Ms.PhD said...

in these photos you look a bit like Everybody Loves Raymond.

I can't remember if he wears sideburns or not.

Mike said...

Raymond, eh? I guess I need to keep working on my George Clooney face.