Haircut Games: Dressing Down by Derek Clarke (recovered)

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Haircut Games : Dressing Down

By Derek Clarke


Here is one sure fire way to get an unwanted short haircut.

It's a Saturday morning and I don't shave. I put aside the smart suit, shirt and tie I usually wear and get dressed instead in a scruffy old pair of overalls, T shirt and work boots. Not forgetting the final touch: a high visibility vest.

Then I head out of town to a barber shop in a working area.

I put on my best working class accent and ask for:

"A haircut, make it nice and short will you mate".

Unfailingly the barber will take you for a a labourer and give you what he thinks is an appropriate haircut. This is usually something practical such as a single number all over.

It is interesting to note how differently you're treated in this situation. Suddenly, you are no longer a prosperous looking young executive but a scruffy, perhaps not terribly bright, unskilled manual worker. I always make sure to act nice and dumb. Chew gum. Breathe through your mouth. Don't show too much facial expression. Have to be told things twice. It's quite fun to be treat as a thicko!

When you've got your short cut you can run your hand over your head and you often get a comment like: "That'll keep you cool!"

Sometimes, getting drunk, before going in helps.

This will take even the brightest IQ down to the Joe Average level, but you need to be careful. Once in my labourer get up, I'd drunk 5 or 6 beers that must have been unusually strong. I'd disguised my breathe with mints and was feeling more or less sober as I sat down in the waiting area. Just drunk enough to give my limbs that authentic loose limbed labourer's sprawl. By the time I was called however I was slurring my speech and grinning like an idiot.

"Shorrr...", I slurred and this seemed to be all I could say.

Number three, number two, number one. The barber (a young guy) seemed to be enjoying himself and I was only half aware what was going on although I was beginning to get alarmed at some level about the increasingly bald looking, unshaven stranger who sat facing me in the mirror.

At the end I ran my hand over my head and there was almost nothing there. "Fuh...". I mumbled to general laughter. When I put my baseball cap back on (backwards, of course) it felt so much roomier it was as if me head had shrunk several inches.

And I can tell you that took some explaining when I went back to work on Monday.

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