Both Army Men Get Shaved by Jonathan

---

I was in college and had nearly no money. My name is Matthew. At the very last minute I was invited to a Halloween party. My friend who had just called and told me she would pick me up in front of my dorm building at 9:00. Her name was Stefani and she was a French foreign exchange student. The year prior she'd lived in the international house dorm. I'd met many foreign students from all over the world living there. This year I still lived in the international house, but she moved to an apartment with some friends. I had kept in touch with her still.

It was around six when she called. I had three hours to get ready. I was told I needed to have a costume for this special Halloween party in a very fancy neighborhood. It was a Thursday night and I honestly was just going to stay home and study. I had not planned on a Halloween costume this year. I reached in my wallet and realized it was the end of the month and I only had two bucks in that sorry looking wallet. I knew I needed to be creative and find some good, free, and easy Halloween costume, but what?

My roommate was gone eating at the dinning hall. He had classes afterwards and wouldn't be back until late. The first thing that came to mind was to look in my closet. I saw my one Hawaiian shirt, tons of Polo shirts as well as button down shirts. No, none of this could be made into a Halloween costume. Then just before sliding the door closed, something caught my eye. It was an Army shirt way at the end. My German friend from last year had given it to me. It was from his military service or something. It had little button things on the collars, stripes, and said some things in German. It was military green in color and unmistakable for an Army shirt.

I pulled this Army shirt off the hanger and tried it on. It fit perfectly. Now all I needed was to complete the look. I had one pair of dark brown Doc Martin boots. I realized I could put this all together with a pair of dark green pants I had. There was just one problem, my hair was down over my ears and too long. I thought, maybe a hat? I looked and found only baseball caps. This wouldn't work with the Army shirt. I went up and down the hall of the dorms asking if anyone had a better type hat for my look, none.

I came back to my dorm room and sat thinking. It hit me! I needed to cut my hair short to match my Army costume. My roommate had some hair clippers. I had grown a little used to my longer hair and thought it looked good. The bangs were long as well as the sides covering my ears. It was just to the middle of the neck in the back. My dark brown hair had to go though.

I let my roommate borrow many things and thought he wouldn't mind me getting into his drawers. I opened the drawers on his side of the closet and soon found his hair clippers. I had never used clippers before, but had watched people use them. I figured it was easy and what could go wrong? I pulled out the box and noticed there were only two plastic guards in with the clippers. One said #2 and the other #3. On closer examination I noticed the plastic part that hooks on to the clippers was broken off on side of the longer #3 guard. I had just one choice, the #2. I hadn't wanted my hair this short though!

Time was going fast and it was now 7:30. I needed to get ready. Stefani would be picking me up for the Halloween party in an hour and a half. My hands were shaking and it hit me for the first time that I was really going to shave most all my hair off. I thought about going into the bathroom, but wanted to do this in the privacy of my own dorm room.

I readied the #2 guard on the clippers and took off my t-shirt. I plugged the clippers into the one plug on the flourescent light fixture above the mirror. Right as I plugged them in they snapped and came to life. My heart was pounding as I reached the beige plastic clippers toward my forehead. Somehow I wanted to do this so bad, yet was so, so scared. I lifted my bangs with my left hand and pushed the clippers into my hair with my right hand. Suddenly I heard a cruch, slice sound and then the clippers get hopelessly stuck. They got very loud too. The quiet little hum turned to an ear piercing buzzing noise. I pulled the clippers back and several chunks of my bangs fell to the floor. I realized they had cut something and it was noticeable. Too late to turn back.

I tried it again. This time pushing much harder, buuuzzzkkk. They got stuck again, however they did take a big chunk of hair off. Not really knowing what I was doing I decided to try starting the clippers up around a sideburn instead. I pulled out some hair caught in the clippers. Then with my hand shaking I pushed and forced the clippers up over the sideburn and toward my left ear. This seemed to work. To my shock the left sideburn was now gone along with the hair in front of my left ear. Even with this attachment it seemed to be cutting the hair much shorter than I'd imagined! I gave it another run and then realized my left ear was now completely exposed. I had not had my ears exposed in years and it seemed weird.

I kept pushing and digging the clippers into the left side of my head. I was still shaking with nervous trepidation and couldn't believe this was all happening. Crack, buzzzitt, oops. That's when it happened! The plastic #2 clip broke and fell loose from the clippers. As it happened I had kept pushing the bare blades of the clippers up along side my head. There was a huge bald spot carved way up to the crown of my head, sh%!. I panicked then and reached down on the floor to pick up that broken #2 plastic guard. I put it on and tried to just hold it onto the clippers and cut along. Then buzzzitt, slip, carve and oh sh%!. I had shaved a much bigger bald spot on the top of my head now. This was really bad. I wanted to look like an Army man, but didn't want an induction cut!

The clippers weren't going to work just holding the guard on. I had two very noticeable bald places carved into my hair too. The only thing to do was to shave it all off. I hated myself for trying this and messing it up. I took the bare blades of the clippers and in about ten minutes I finished off what I'd started. There was nearly nothing left. I stared at my new self in the mirror. Gone was the perfect dark brown hair framing my head. The shadow of the flourescent light looked harsh on my bare forehead and those ears! What had I done. I realized there was hair all over. I put on a baseball cap and ran down the hall to get a vacuum cleaner. Quickly I vacuumed up the hair and put away the clippers.

It was now 8:00! Only one hour until Stefani would be out front to take me to the Halloween party. I needed to shower and dress. That first shampoo with no hair was a shock. I put a huge pile of shampoo in my hand as usual. When I put it into my hair I realized I had no hair. All the shampoo ran off my bald head and into my eyes. Ouch it stung. I rubbed my head clean and it felt so weird and stubblely. Also I noticed bunches of little hair specks on my feet and on the floor of the shower.

I got dressed, put on the boots and headed to the front of the dorm building. It was now 8:45. Several of my friends walked by. First they didn't even recognize me. They laughed and said oh Matthew what happened to your hair? I realized I would likely not know many people at the party. This would be easy to show up shaved headed. Yet tomorrow on campus, that was going to be hard. Soon Stefani pulled up at just around
8:55, early! She just couldn't get over my new look and costume.

In about 20 minutes we got to the party. It was still very early and not all the people were there yet. I came into the large house and settle in on the back sun porch room. People had some really nice costumes. All ages attended the party, yet mostly college age kids. I started drinking my first couple beers and then in walks another Army man! He is wearing a really nice Army costume, better than mine. What isn't better is his hair. He has an Army hat, but under it is a long mop of black hair down to his shoulders. Right away he and I start talking and become friends. He thinks my look is real punk and loves my shaved head. I joke with him and say whose ever heard of an Army man with long hair. This guy's name was Chris. I realized soon he's really young, maybe only 19. Too young for the kind of drinking at this party. Soon more and more people come and the whole place is packed with Halloween costumes and people drinking.

I know very few people and Stefani just hangs with her friends. As the hours go by I meet a few people and most comment on my costume and shaved head. Now I've been drinking and the idea of all my hair gone doesn't bother me as much now. I soon will have to deal with one more haircut tonight though. That other Army man Chris is really, really drunk. I have come across a few people too young to handle alcohol in my days. This poor guy was the worst however. He was stumbling around and could hardly talk.

Several other people at the party were making fun of him. I felt an obligation to watch out for him however. I'd met him hours earlier when he was not in this drunken state. He was a couple years younger and I saw him as a poor kid. It wouldn't be long before he passed out. I left the sun porch and went to talk to Stefani and her friends. I would say around 30 minutes later I went back to the sun porch and found Chris again. There was a big problem though. Some guys had found some scissors and had cut huge chunks of his long black hair off! They were laughing and saying "there you go Army man, now you have a haircut." Chris was still passed out completely. I told them to stop cutting his hair. They just laughed, then left the sun porch. Poor Chris's hair had been hacked to the scalp in places. One side was nearly bald and other parts had chunks missing. I could see one of his ears exposed, but the other ear fully covered by his once perfect mane. What could I do? If I woke him he might think I did this to him. I realized he was in a bad state of mind to wake him up.

I decided to take my chances as it was getting late and the party would soon be over anyway. I shook and shook him. I woke with a fright. The poor little guy was still so drunk. He stood up and I got him some coffee and water. It was amazing that he didn't even realize those other guys had hacked off his hair in patches. I took him to Stefani's friends and they couldn't believe what happened to him. Then he looked and saw it. He cried and whined a bit about his hair. He was still too out of it though to completely comprehend what happened to him.

It turned out the people he'd come to the party had already left. Chris had no way home. He kept falling asleep and we just decided to take him back to the dorm. It was around midnight when Stefani dropped me off. I let Chris sleep on my dorm room floor. In the morning he let me finish off shaving his destroyed hair bald before he left. It felt so cool to shave his head. Not at all what I expected. I could feel him quivering like a little animal as I took the clippers across his head. Right in my hands his black hair fell off so amazingly fast! I carefully held down his large ears and buzzed around them. I never thought I'd shave two heads that Halloween. This turned out to be fun. Both Army men at that Halloween party would wind up with unwanted induction haircuts ironically that year on Halloween.

---