Bad service. People rarely complain about it.
Instead they sit silently perturbed.
Or sometimes you see their faces crinkle up as they whisper just how terrible they’re being treated to whoever is nearest.
“Can you believe this, shit? Who raised this guy?”
But haircuts are different. It’s harder to complain.
For some reason it’s hard to show silent dissatisfaction without the barber knowing you’re displeased. Maybe body language is amplified while wearing a shiny smock and paper collar.
And also no one wants to tell someone they’re shitty at the job they trained for weeks to get and spent a meager sum of money for certification on. It’s not polite.
Leave the unqualified and unfit talk for the department directors. The one’s with master’s degrees. Save it for the ones that will inevitably take debt and inferiority to an untimely grave. Those are the people that deserve the most grief.
But in all seriousness, haircuts can be fixed while losing large sums of someone else’s money cannot.
This all leads us to the story of Taylor’s first trip to the new chain barbershop in town.
Big red letters proclaiming cheap prices and fast service were graffit’d all over the gaudily shaped chamber of a building. Inside waited three already angered customers as sparkling smiled scissors wavers took their sweet time sweeping the locks off of the red tiled floor.
“Only a couple more minutes…”
While sitting next to the heavy breathing and pissed off patrons, Taylor found a way to drown out the Phil Collins satellite station and had managed to finger his way through 4 issues of ESPN the Magazine. He hated sports but loved the size of ESPN. Big pages. Big print. Both perfect for his small hands and weak eyes.
He was finally summoned to his seat in front of Terry, the diamond-eyed barber.
Now every time Taylor got his haircut he always remembered the first short story he ever wrote. It was called “The Perfectionist” and was about-
There’s a man on my block.
A man that cuts hair.
You could call him a barber.
Well, he cuts hair.
He cuts hair and slices jugulars.
And he slices jugulars because of the awful haircuts he gives.
Yeah, that’s right.
You can watch him cut hair. He takes his time and makes the cuts as precise as possible.
His shears in his right hand and a magnifying glass in his left-
he fucks up every time.
Small details.
Ones that you would barely notice if you were standing a short distance away but…
The magnifying glass, well, it magnifies these fuck ups and enrages the scissors wielder.
“All set. Hey, this one’s on me. Let me walk you out the back way so no one notices…”
As soon as they step outside-
Jugular/sliced
Blood/dripping
Breath/taken
Body/dumpstered.
He’s not a murderer.
He’s a perfectionist.
A perfectionist in need of a new chair.
BLONDE ON BLONDE 