Some haircuts you won’t see him wearing anytime soon

When I go to the barbershop, it isn’t much of an adventure. The barber does a little snipping here and there and a little buzzing there and here, and before I know it, I have a haircut. It looks pretty much like it did before I sat down in the chair, just neater and fresher-feeling.

Don’t ask me how one’s hair can be fresher-feeling. Maybe when one has as little hair left as I do, when some of it is removed, it lets the cold air on your head.

Some people, though, do have adventures in the barber shop. People with thick heads of dark hair will go into a barbershop and come out an hour later with all kinds of unusual things having happened.

For example, I saw a fellow come out of a downtown barbershop not long ago with a name shaved in the sides of his head. The name was Amy. It’s a good thing the girl’s name wasn’t Geraldine. He would have run out of room. Shaved into the back of his head was a heart.

These hair designs are a little like tattoos, only with less risk. If he and Amy decide to break up, all he needs to do is wear a hat until his hair grows out again, and he can have it cut to look like mine. Also, the haircut was probably no more than $25.

If he had gone into a tattoo establishment and had Amy tattooed on his neck, or wherever, it would have cost him a lot more, and even more still when he went into the dermatologist to have it removed.

I have seen haircuts that resemble brooms sitting upside down on the top of the man’s head when he emerges from the barbershop. The hair sticks straight up and sometimes is a different color than the rest of the hair. The last one I saw was purple and green on top of a thick head of black hair.

Now I realize that odd haircuts are nothing new; people have had odd haircuts for a long time. But those were usually in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where you could get arrested for looking normal.

Back in the old days (10 years ago) a barber would ask you if you wanted some bay rum on your head when the haircut was over. But those days are long gone. Bay rum is a thing of the past, and maybe for good reason. The air-pollution control people may have thought it was contributing to photochemical smog.