A Hairy Situation

I've been overdue for a haircut, which is silly because my barbershop is just a short walk away, and is always a pleasant experience. Well, almost always. Tuesday was the first time ever that I've ever had to wait for a trim, which I suppose is bad for business, but good for my remarkably busy schedule. I waited about twenty minutes through a gentleman's cut before a family of three entered and immediately disrupted the peace.

"I need a haircut!" an obnoxious blonde child said running up to the barber, startling her.

The child's somewhat older brother, a real life embodiment of Nat Nerd the Garbage Pail Kid, speaking in a true nerd fashion without even a hint of affect, nasally stated, "He's not getting a haircut, I'm getting a haircut."

Indeed, the older child had a messy head of hair that could use a shear, while the younger child already had a buzzed head. "It's too long!" the kid whined, though if it were any shorter, he'd be sporting a shiny Mr. Clean bald head.

The father walked in several paces behind. He was sporting a Walmart uniform and using a hands-free telephone headset. Also, he had a mullet, which prompted me to reconsider where I was getting a haircut.

As the younger kid cried about how he needed a haircut he clearly didn't need, the father ignored him, instead continuing with his telephone conversation. Shortly, the first gentleman was sufficiently trimmed and took his leave, most likely grateful to escape the loud family.

It was my turn, so I stood up to take the seat, but the youngest kid sprinted to it first. He sat in the chair and demanded to receive a trim. His father had to actually pry him from the chair, while the nerdy brother sat staring into space, repeating the word "no" quietly to himself. The young kid's tantrum was not done: if he wasn't going to get a cut, he wanted one of his family members to go next. "Don't let him go first! He's going to take foreverrrrrrrrrrrr! His hair is long and ugly!"

Thanks, asshole. To my credit, I was attempting to change the very hairstyle he disliked. Since the dad wasn't paying attention, I glared at the kid in a similarly immature fashion to let him know I didn't appreciate his comment. He responded by screaming at me, "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!" His father responded by... oh wait, that's right, he did nothing.

At this point, the nerd brother tried to intervene. "Why don't you read this magazine?" he said flatly. His younger brother responded by hitting him. Finally, the dad interrupted his telephone conversation to chastise his kid, though it wound up being the wrong one. "Quit it, I'll handle your brother," the dad told nerd-kid. This command might have been fine had he actually made an attempt to control his bratty kid, but he didn't.

Between the tantrums, I was able to hear what the dad was so busy doing. It was Nerd-son's birthday this weekend, and he was having trouble finding anyone willing to come to his party. Even the grandparents weren't giving a firm commitment. After so much talk about his brother's birthday, the demon spawn whined about how he wanted it to be his birthday, not his brother's. He expressed his anger toward this impossibility by running up and grabbing the barber by the leg, again crying for a haircut. Fortunately, the barber saw the attack just in time to pull the scissors away from my head and prevent a medical or stylistic catastrophe.

Attempting to problem solve, the barber offered to put on the television, which the aggressive kid accepted. There was a momentary setback in the form of a freak out when the kid wasn't entertained by the current program, but when he was permitted to change it to a channel of his choosing, he was entranced for a solid five minutes.

Just when I was finally enjoying the peace, the kid had gotten bored with the television and cocked an imaginary gun and fired multiple shots at me, while screaming, "DIE!" Needless to say, this form of playing made me feel uncomfortable. I closed my eyes, pretending it wasn't happening. At last, I heard the father speak up. "That's rude," he said. Not to mention psychotic! Does this kid want his head shaved because he's a six-year-old homicidal skinhead?

Once my haircut was complete, I paid and hoped to never look back. "Much better," the father said to me after checking out my haircut. Although I think he was genuinely trying to be nice after his kid made fun of my hair earlier and then, by his own admission, "rudely" pantomimed killing me, I still gave him a fairly dismissive "thanks." I didn't want this unsolicited compliment, particularly not from a be-mulleted candidate for parent of the year.