Walton: You can’t fix stupid, and you can’t fix a bad haircut
Unfortunately we must chalk up 2020 as “The Year of Living Slovenly.”
By Thomas Walton / The Blade
Sun, 24 May 2020 04:00:00 GMT
link -- with images
LET OHIOANS bow their heads and thank the Lord — and Gov. Mike DeWine — that barber shops and beauty salons are finally open again. While we rightly salute the heroes among us, specifically the health care professionals who are fighting the pandemic in the trenches, let us not forget other pros who are finally back in the game — the hair care professionals.
If you have one who already lives with you, he or she is gold. You are good to go — or in your case, stay.
However, if you’re like me and don’t have a live-in stylist at your house, it’s possible you’re just not ready yet to venture out and get a haircut at a place where the coronavirus might be lurking near the cash register.
Or perhaps your cutter or stylist’s shop is swamped and you can’t get an appointment until mid-August. I considered going to the guy with a bar stool and a weed-whacker in the alley two blocks over, but he was booked for six weeks.
The way I see it, you and I might need to ponder another option, and that is to stay at home and cut our hair ourselves. If you are a person of the female persuasion, you must also color it yourself.
Either way, if you’ve never done it before, there’s a steep learning curve, as I discovered many years ago when I tried cutting my own hair.
As a young buck with no money — as opposed to the old buck with no money I’ve become — I decided to try cutting my own hair to save a little cash. Bad idea.
It was the same faulty logic I had used after my first child was born. I purchased a case of disposable diapers I was convinced would keep my baby supplied for years provided we only changed the disposable diaper once a month.
After all, it said right there on the box: “Good for up to 25 pounds.” Talk about a “rash” decision.
OK, I made that part up. Just trying to lighten the mood. But it underscores the folly of making misguided choices with little forethought about the consequences.
I remember drafting a plan of attack. Part One, my wife would trim the hair on the back of my neck. She wanted no part of going any further. Part Two, I would take the scissors to the rest of the briar patch on my head. Long story short, Part One went a lot better than Part Two.
Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Every snip created a new problem that had to be corrected somewhere else. Gouges over here. Craters and crevices over there. My hair looked like the surface of the moon — the waning gibbous phase. One long and winding road on my head reminded me of the Pacific Crest Trail, but without the scenery. Not a good look for me.
Finally I could not bear to stare any longer at the alien peering back at me from the mirror. I had crop circles on my head. It looked like I got a haircut at the barber college on Prank Day. It was time to stop.
I’d have been better off hiring the neighbor kid who mowed the lawn. At least he cut in straight lines. Where was Edward Scissorhands when I needed him?
My wife, between smirks and guffaws, tried to console me. “It’ll grow back,” she said. “Eventually.”
She was right of course, but for weeks she had to field inquiries from concerned friends and family: “Where’s Tom? Is he sick?”
Nope, just hiding.
As I recall, I wore a hat to the dinner table for a month. Otherwise nobody would have had an appetite.
That was then and this is now. You can’t fix stupid, and you can’t fix a bad haircut. This time I’m just letting my hair go until my shop’s schedule opens up a bit. So what if I look like a Whig. Or a Tory. I don’t care.
If you, however, should decide to push ahead and cut your hair yourself, I salute your courage. I would tip my cap to you, but for now I can’t get a cap on my head.
Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful I have all this hair. I just don’t know what to do with it. There was a time when I only had bed hair when I woke up in the morning. Now I have bed hair when I go to bed.
If I were young and my hair was still dark brown, this might look cool. But I’m not and it isn’t, so it doesn’t.
Unfortunately we must chalk up 2020 as “The Year of Living Slovenly.” If you’re keeping score at home, that’s COVID 19, Personal Grooming 0.
Thomas Walton is a retired editor and vice president of The Blade in Toledo, Ohio (twalton@theblade.com).