214: emergency intensive care hair cut

Haircuts are rubbish.  Big ones, small ones, fancy ones, plane ones; they are all stupid.  Topiary for the scalp.  I once heard hair being dismissed by a wise man as ‘just material on your head’.  Why must it be faffed with on a regular basis by a professional faffer with an expensive pair of scissors and the power to spray water all over your head?  Some people like to get their kids circumcised, and despite all the disadvantages to that, at least it doesn’t grow back every couple of months.  At least we aren’t required to present ourselves at the salon at regular intervals for foreskin styling.  Scientists!  Please drop all your fruitless work in cancer research and sub-atomic exploration, and band together to create a pill that stops hair growth once and for all.  Freeze my hair in a permanent state of just-passable, slightly ruffled neatness, and stop the constant millimetre by excruciating millimetre decline into shagginess.

‘How would you like it cut?’ is one of the hardest questions I am ever faced with.  So far the best answer I have come up with is, ‘like it is now, but shorter’.  It sounds pretty silly, and is both inaccurate and unhelpful, but without knowing all the technical terminology it is the most mature response I can muster.  I would just shave it all off myself, but it makes me look really odd.  I become strangely aware of my profile and feel really big-nosed, over-bitey, speccy, and bumpy-headed, like a caricaturised drawing of myself.  And although my hairline does seem to be ever so slightly inching its way upwards, I still have a healthy head of hair that I want to make the most out of while I can.  Then as my formerly flowing blonde locks become wheezy and arthritic, I’ll send them to Switzerland for a spot of assisted suicide.

All this nonsense is just cos I am going for a haircut in a few minutes.  I go about as often as I go to the doctors (not very much).  Often people put off going for the doctors for ages because they are scared of finding out there is something wrong with them.  Eventually a minor complaint compounds into something serious and they have to be rushed to hospital in a hurry.  It would suit me fine if there was a hairdressing equivalent to this.  When my hair gets so scruffy it looks ridiculous and even a hat can’t hide it, my nearest and dearest can call the emergency number and have me rushed off for an intensive care hair cut.  Then I get a couple of days bed rest as an inpatient in order to recover, and a follow-up appointment to see how I’m doing after a month or two.  Perfect.

After I’ve had this hair cut I fully expect my neck pain to ease up.  The extra weight is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.  Except it’s not straw, it’s hair that looks like straw.  My step will spring, my legs will leap and my tongue will tra-la-la with the freedom of the lifted load.  Wish me luck.