Drinking the Kool-Aid by keepingitreal

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I drank the Kool-Aid.
Salons are great for picky customers. My family had one stylist we visited whenever she was available, and that was about the gist of the problem: she was never available when I needed her. I knew if I went there, I’d get exactly what I specified, as long as it was a simple cut you could get at any chain salon. But my patience had been running out. My town had no barbers, only chain salons that had such as bad reputation that "I had a bad haircut" became a common saying at school for those unfortunate enough to have them be their only option. I envied my friend’s Brad Pitt-esque undercuts who went to pricier salons, but my hair refused to work like that, and after a visit to one of them, I decided that they were overpriced. I had been growing my hair for the last four months in an attempt to mimic them, and all it had done was become a 3-inch carpet on the top of my head that I had to comb in the morning lest it look disgruntled.
I was done with my long hair. Now, I couldn’t go and shave it off. At our school, balding is for the teachers; any student with their scalp exposed would be an object of pity or their friends’ next joke. Yes, we had bad haircuts in town, but no one was stupid enough to accidentally go bald. So I did some research on the Internet, and found a barbershop that was 10 minutes down the highway by my house, and it advertised its old-fashioned ways by means of glowing reviews and only accepting payment in cash. So, before school, I found the $25 I had set aside just for this day, and stuck it into my wallet. After school, I went to the barbershop.
I had a moment of doubt. I didn’t want to ruin my first visit by wimping out - I’m a guy who knows first impressions matter, and I didn’t want the barber’s impression of me to be hesitation. I wanted the full experience, and I knew it meant parting with my carefully-preserved mop that I had developed a love-hate relationship with. I had been growing it long in hopes of achieving that undercut all my friends wore by the time my senior photos came around in the summer, and if I cut it now it wouldn’t grow back quick enough. But as I sat in the parking lot, I realized I had tried many times before to get that cut, but my hair never worked with it; it just was a hassle. It couldn’t really be combed into anything neat, and the long strands on the sides were sticking up everywhere, which was driving me nuts. What caused me to commit, however, was my job. I had my first day tomorrow, and I didn’t want my coworker’s first impression of me to be of a person who didn’t maintain a professional appearance. So when a dad and his kid, three or four years younger than me, went into the shop, I knew it was time.
The doors were foreboding: they’d put up thick pieces of paper on the glass door which made it so you couldn’t see inside. They seemed to say, "Come in, only if you’re ready". So I took a breath, and went in. They had a sheet of paper on the table with a pen. On it were two columns: "Name" and "Barber". I wrote my name in, and checked "Any Barber". The father’s son was already a chair, and was chatting with his barber in a relaxed manner. As I sat and watched them, I could tell they were friends.
The barber said, "Why, it’s been a long time, [redacted]. Your hair’s really grown. Do you want your regular?".
The kid smiled, the tip of his lips almost connecting with the long hair on the top of his head, and said, "yep".
The next barber called my name, and I followed her to the chair.
It was a old-fashioned, heavy metal chair with leather cushions fading from age. Sitting in it felt like ascending into a throne. I sat upright against the back, my feet resting on a plate that swiveled to meet then that guaranteed my good posture. The barber wrapped a white strip of paper around my neck and pulled it snug, then put a cape over me in a matter that felt like she meant business.
"What do you want?" she said.
They had a sign in the shop’s window that said "Today’s Special: Crew Cut - Ask Your Barber". I had read about them on the web, and decided that I might as well try one. "I’ll have a crew cut," I said. "My first day of my new job is tomorrow, and I want to look neat and clean. I want an inch left on the front, and a #1 fade on the sides."
I had never had a fade before, because the salons in my town had reputations for butchering them, so I wasn’t sure exactly what type, but I was sick of the hair on the sides of my head growing from the #1 that they had been uniformly shaved down to every time I went to a salon into a fuzzy, unkempt-looking mess. The barber asked my what type of fade, and I told her she could do whatever she thought best.
"I think you’ll really like it," she said.
At this point, I had expected her to turn the chair I sat in around, as it had been facing away from the mirrors. But as she started the clippers with a click and the motor inside began to drone, I realized that she wasn’t going to. I wouldn’t be able to see. I had given her my suggestions, but she was in control. There would be no point at which I could say "stop". I began to panic. What if it was too short? What if, heaven forbid, I came out with scalp showing? But before those thoughts could make their way through my head, she had began cutting. I was at her mercy.
First, she began to shear off my long hair at the top. I felt patches of hair being lifted, then the sound of the clippers sliding over the comb, chopping off chunks of months of growth. After she had cut off a good amount, she stopped and firmly brushed off the chunks of hair that must have been left over. I knew that was only the preparation for the real deal, and I waited, holding myself upright like I was a cadet at a military school standing at attention. I didn’t look down to the floor to see my locks on the ground. There was no going back, and I was coming to ride the wave like a man.
She then snapped on the #1 and began to cut away all the fuzzy sides I had grown to despise. This part, I had no worries about. She did that for a while, which I happily sat through. Then she began the real shearing.
Another guard got put on the clipper, and it began to ride over the top of my head, with a steady rhythm. It’d whir and chop a strip down, then get pulled up and away, like someone would mow their lawn. I couldn’t see the mirror, and I had a moment of panic - what if it was a really short length and I was being scalped? But I steeled myself - I didn’t come to the barbershop to design my haircut, I came to get a proper haircut for the first time in my life - which meant giving up some control and letting the barber do their job. So I felt the clipper make all its passes, and considered myself like a sheep getting shorn - it was healthy, and it was good. I didn’t have to worry about choosing what was best for me, the barber would.
After the barber had finished shearing off all the growth on the top of my head, she took the guard off the clippers and began to tidy it up. Once again, the sound of clippers running over a comb met my ears. When she was done, she brushed my head off. Then she began to cut my bangs - the make-or-break part of the haircut. I hoped she’d leave enough to for me to comb. I closed my eyes as if I were praying as she stood in front of me like an artist putting the fine details on her work, combing the hair out onto my forehead and resolutely trimming away.
After that, she did a few more final passes around my head, then brushed it off. She got hair wax from a tin, and rubbed it into my hair, her hands firm. My head was warm from all the action - it was my first real haircut. We had made small talk a bit during the process, and now she said, "You’ll be looking great for your first day tomorrow".
She took the cape off me, then handed me a mirror. "What do you think?"
I looked at my first proper haircut for the first time. Gone was the long, floppy field of hair that had adorned the top of my head. In its place stood a neatly trimmed pasture, standing in the wind. I noted with satisfaction that the fading accented my face’s shape, which I thought always looked silly with long hair. My haircut finally seemed to fit with my face, instead of them being at odds with each other. I noticed that back of the top was still a bit long, I thought it would be more shorter than the front, but I figured since it was my first time at the shop I might as well keep the cut and see how it grows on me.
"I like it," I said. "Where do I pay?"
"You can just pay me," she said. "$25 in cash".
I dug my wallet out of my pocket, and took out the $25 I had been saving for my first trip a barbershop, and handed it over. "Thank you," I said. "I really like it."
"That’s good. Don’t forget your coat."
"Thanks," I said with a smile on my face. "I’ll see you sometime soon, maybe."
As I put my coat on, I checked on the father’s son. He had just finished his cut, and been given his mirror.
"What do you think?" his barber said, "Is it short enough for you?"
The son looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was cut even shorter than mine, standing up nice and straight with the sides shaved off. "Yep," he said. "You got it right."
I walked out of the barbershop. I might have left a ton of hair on the floor, but I’ll never know how much, because I never looked. I ran my hand through my hair. Instead of struggling through the limp carpet that had been there only an hour before, my fingers glided over my neatly-trimmed hair. Submission had never been more satisfying. The cold air bit my exposed head, but all it did was reaffirm my decision: I had gotten a proper haircut, and was done with salons. I’d be back.

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