A Father, A Son, 4 Haircuts & A Mustache by Deke Cutter

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My son and I were ready for our periodic visit to the local chain hair cutting place. We both had straight hair that usually was just about covering our ears when we went in for a cut. We would get it trimmed to around the middle of the ear and off the collar. I’d get the bangs a little shorter than my son’s, but otherwise we kept it simple. I knew the quality might not be great, but it was economic, and my son was generally accepting of it. He and I had talked about going a little shorter for the summer this time since it was already hot. We both knew to be vigilant if these ‘stylists’ got out the clippers, though. We had one young woman that we both liked. She did an o.k. job and we hoped she would be there. She was but was leaving early and said she would only take me and suggested another younger girl to cut my son’s hair. He was a bit uncomfortable but agreed. He is almost 16 so I like to let him make his own choices on things like this when he can. Dina, who cut my hair seemed preoccupied and was less talkative than usual. I decided not to tell her to take any more off than normal. I was glad I did. It was not a good haircut. She left the hair on top very uneven. The back was squared off a good inch higher than normal and she had barely left my ears covered at all. Luckily, I had caught her before she went crazy on my bangs. My son Chip fared even worse. The girl had cut his hair much shorter than he wanted, completely off his ears and his bangs were now well above his eyebrows when combed down. The back looked like she had made a half-hearted to shorten with clippers. I paid and we left.

When we got back to the Suburban, I could tell my son was upset. "Buddy," I said, "we got two terrible haircuts and I’m not going to deny it. Do you agree that we are done with this clip joint?" That last bit made him smile a little.

"Dad, she really messed me up. Look at the sides, they’re not even and the back feels ‘all choppy.’ Your hair doesn’t look as bad as mine, but Din didn’t cut the back of your hair right."

"I know and she didn’t do too good a job up top either. Let’s go show mom and see what she thinks."

My wife was not impressed with my son’s haircut but was very kind to him when she saw us come in and I kind of gave her ‘the eye.’ You folks with kids know what I mean. Married couple develop unspoken language. I let her know that Chip felt bad about his haircut, and she shouldn’t pile on. So, she just told him how handsome he was and that he was getting to look more like me every day. Chip said he wanted to go to his room to play a video game and left us downstairs. Once we heard his door close and my wife checked that his little sister wasn’t lurking, she said to me, "well, they really messed you both up this time!"

"Yep, I told Chip we would not return there, but I feel bad for him. There’s not much we can do for him. I might bite the bullet and go to the Man Cave, that Barber Shop downtown. I’ll probably end up with a shorter haircut than usual to fix this mess, but it is summer. Would you mind?" I’m a partner in an environmental engineering firm and my hair length is not a work issue, long or short. I just have always sort of kept it at this sort of ‘customer friendly’ length for no special reason.

"Oh babe, you know I love you with or without hair. Don’t you remember back in college when the frat made all the pledges shave their heads? I thought you looked kind of sexy with that buzz cut. But what about Chip? Do you think you should tell him and just see if he wants to go with you? You’re so good at not pressuring him. What do you think?"

"Can’t hurt", I said. As I approached Chip’s room, our daughter, Lucy came out.

She looked at me and said, "turn around daddy." I did, and she then gave me her verdict. "Not nearly as bad as Chip’s," and walked into her own room with the self-assurance that only a 14-year-old who knows she has both the men in her house completely under control.

I knocked before entering Chip’s room. I found my boy staring into space. "Hey son, how’s it going?

"O.K., with a side of bad haircut," he quipped.

"Listen, I’m going down to the Man Cave and seeing what they can do to fix this mess," I said, running my hand through my hair. "I expect I am going to come home with a short haircut, but it’s the only alternative. I’m not willing to pay one of those fancy salons forty bucks or more to make some small corrections. I figured I’d go for something that will, at least leave me cooler. I just wanted to see if you were interested or even if you just wanted to come for some moral support for your old dad."

I really thought Chip would say no, but after a thinking about it for a bit, he looked at me and said, "I’ll come with you dad, and I think I’d like to get my haircut fixed too, but I’d like to make a deal with you. How about I go first? I think they are going to have to cut mine shorter than yours to fix it and I want you to promise me that you’ll get yours cut as short as mine is so I’m not the only one scalped for the summer in this house."

I loved the way this kid could turn a bad situation around. "Alright kiddo, you’ve got a deal!" We went downstairs and, on the way, out, I winked at my wife whispered in her ear to get my frat sweater out. On the way to the barber’s, I told my son about how my frat pledge class had to get our heads buzzed as a fund raiser for a cancer charity my freshman year of college. "One thing it taught me was that, after a day or two, nobody really notices a change in your haircut, even the most radical change." When we arrived, we were lucky to find parking right in front of the shop. I took alternate Fridays off so we managed to get there at a quiet time in the early afternoon.

"Gentlemen, welcome to the Man Cave, I’m Jake, I’m the owner, how can I help. Terry and Ron are at lunch but will be back shortly."

"Hi Jake, I am Bill, and this is my son Chip. Jake, if it’s not a problem, we’d like the same barber to cut us both," I said. I’ll explain when you’ve got my son taken care of. Let me just tell you that we both had a very bad experience at one of your, well I can’t even call them your competitor. A chain shop hacked us up and we would like you to fix us up. We’ve neither of us been to a real barber shop, me since I was a kid, and Chip here, ever."

"Chip, why don’t you hop up in my chair here and let me see what we have to work with." Jake appeared to be around 35 and he had a tightly tapered haircut that looked very good on his and what I believe are called full sleeve tattoos on his arms. After Chip got settled, Jake caped him up and put that strip of paper around his neck. Then he started combing through Chips hair and eyeing it from each side. "Whoever did this should not be cutting hair professionally. They left the sides uneven, and different hair lengths on top. I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish here in the back. I would say that you take could care of your hair and its nice and thick. I wish I could undo the damage, but I can’t. It will take a good several months for all the various hair lengths to grow out for somebody to give you a decent longer style, but I can suggest a nice medium fade, sort of like mine, and we could leave the some of the length on top and give a nice pomp on top here. Or we could go shorter on top for the summer. If you like the fade, you can keep it and maybe just grow the top out when school starts, or we can just let it all grow out after the summer. It will take a while, but I can trim it up as needed. It is always up to the customer."

Chip had been listening carefully to Jake. He said, "I’m feeling adventurous. Let’s go with the fade and I will leave it to your discretion what to do with the top, not too short though for this first time." What a difference it was seeing a real professional at work. Jake took his time removing the hair on the sides and back of Chip’s head and then using various clippers and different guards to fade it down. He wet the top and showed Chip how much he was cutting, and Chip surprised me with how much length he was willing to lose. Chip seemed to really enjoy the finishing touches with the warm shaving cream and the straight razor too. Jake finished with a styling clay that had Chip’s hair shaped into a smart looking pomp in the front. He looked like a different young man as he stepped out of the chair, smiling brightly. "O.K. dad, your turn."

After Jake had cleaned up the chair, he invited me to sit. "Jake," I said, "Chip and I agreed that my hair would be cut as short as his was, since this is our first joint barber shop experience. So, tell me, do you think that haircut will work for me too?"

After he caped me up, combed through my hair and said, "somebody else cut your hair, right?" I agreed. "Yeah, its not nearly as messed up as Chip’s was. In fact, I could have fixed yours up without taking too much off. But a deal’s a deal and you guys look so much alike, I think you could pull off a similar look. But how about you leave it to me. I’m thinking of something a little bit different for you. How attached are you to that soup strainer below your nose?"

"Soup strainer? Oh, you mean my mustache. Heck, I’ve had it since Chip was a baby, thought it made me look older back then. Why, do want to trim it up or something?"

"I’d like to shave it off. I think it will overwhelm your face with the shorter haircut. You don’t have to give me an answer now. Let’s wait until I am done with your hair."

Another country was heard from when my newly coiffed son made his preference known, "oh cool dad, shave off that soup strainer, hahahaha!"

Jake wasted no time in clearing the hair off from the back of my head. I really had hated the blocked off way that Dina had left the back, so it was almost a relief to have Jake run the clippers up the back of my head and to start to feel the breeze of the air conditioning. This was the shortest my hair had been cut since that fraternity buzz back in college. "You are a lucky guy Bill, there is no sign of thinning in your hair at all. I don’t even see any scars back here. Let’s see how these sides look when I uncover them. With that he too the clippers to my sideburns and started to move up the side of my head, stopping about an inch below the part line. It was strange seeing my ear completely uncovered, but I liked the way this was developing, and I felt comfortable in Jake’s hands. Before I knew it, he had finished both sides and was wetting down the top. He combed the hair to the left then to the right, then combed it straight down to make sure he got it soaked. The sides were now so short that he had to get a clean towel and quickly dry them because there was only stubble left and not enough hair to soak up the water dripping down. That was a new experience too! "I’m just going to take some length off the top and maybe thin it out a bit because your hair has so much bulk to it," Jake explained. Boy, I liked the way he kept me informed. When he’d done that, he combed my bangs down and they still fell into my eyes. "Now don’t freak out but I am going to trim these bangs up quite a bit but trust me." Next thing, zip and my bangs were an inch above my eyebrows. Then Jake got a finger full of a clay product, rubbed it in his hands and worked it through my hair. He gave me a clean part on the left and combed the bangs up and over so that they were like a half moon. Then he said, "OK Bill, now is the moment of truth, are we cleaning off that upper lip?"

"Go for it dad."

"Oh what the heck, but if I hate it, you guys both owe me a buzz cut!" Next thing I knew, Jake had a guardless clipper eating away at my pride and joy. He even followed it up with a straight razor and shaving cream. When he finally turned me around to face the mirror, the man staring back at me looked like Chip’s older brother rather than his old dad! "Jake, who is that guy. Is it me? I think you’ve got two new customers Jake." Chip had a big smile on his face too. We paid and headed home.

When we got home, my wife and daughter both expressed their approval for our new looks. "Chip, I’ll bet you know who might go out on a date with you now that you look so handsome," Lucy said.

"Shut up, booger face," Chip replied. This meant that his sister had scored a direct hit and that the haircut had the desired outcome that her brother had hoped for and that his sister was not supposed to speak of in front of the old people. They retreated upstairs to continue their verbal warfare.

"Come here, you stud," my wife said after the kids left. "I have been waiting for a kiss from you without that brush on your lip for so long. We kissed like we were young lovers, and she was running her lips all over the sensitive naked skin above my upper lip. Then she started to run her hands up the back of my head. "Ooh, I forgot how sexy that stubbly hair felt. Let me feel those sides." (I was starting to get so hot, I thought ‘Billy Bang Bang’ downstairs might explode and then….

"Mom, can you drive me over to Cindy’s house."

"Yes, please get her out of here."

"Sorry tiger looks like reality is back," my wife said. But you and your sexy new look, just wait until tonight. And plan on keeping that lip naked and that hair short Mister. I see some hot summer nights ahead for us. Let’s see if your mother can take the kids for a week."

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