As a little boy I was to always get my haircut at the barbershop, short clipper cuts without exception, but as I got a bit older I start to dread barbershop visits. Clipper cuts were for strictly for dweebs and geezers and had it been up to me - I'd have stopped getting haircuts right there and then. Well, my parents were understanding enough and didn't insist on me getting clipper cuts any longer, but I HAD to get my haircut just the same.

Since I had forsaken the old barbershop shop, the only alternative was going to that stylist's place, which quite a few of my class mates also frequented. So an appointment was made and I showed up one late afternoon after school for my haircut. I didn't like the place right off the bat - too sterile and nothing but local housewifes with curlers in their hair gossiping. Well, after a short wait, the owner of the salon, a young woman, proceeded to give me my haircut - if you can call it that. The only good thing about it was - it ended up being longer than my old clipper cuts, but it looked sooo awful - I almost cried. The bangs were hideously crooked and the sides were way off! I was so humiliated, I remember running home covering up my head as best I could and hidding underneath our porch for the next couple of hours until someone found me.

Even my mom agreed that it was a hack job. Looking back now, I should've gone to the old barber to get it fixed up, but that would've meant getting an even shorter haircut, which was completely OUT OF THE QUESTION! So I was stuck with the worst haircut of my life for next few weeks until it grew out enough that it need to be cut again. From then on, my dad took me and my younger brother to a shop in a neighboring town and that's where we got our haircuts for the next few years. I didn't like those haircuts much either because it meant hair was getting CUT, but at least the barber knew what he was doing and, to a degree, he sympathized with us wannabe longhairs.