Haircut

Aaron’s “pog” entry inspired me to try to write about some of the more ordinary things in our lives here. He succeeded.

Haircuts. Every military member has to have them on a regular basis. You see all kinds of haircuts here from the “intentional absence of hair” haircut to the “let it grow as long as you absolutely can before the Command Sergeant Major jumps all over you and tells you to get your *ss to the barber” haircut. I’m somewhere in between. OK, maybe I’m towards the latter end but it’s not for a lack of trying to get my hair cut short.

Here on post we have a small, one-chair barbershop. The barber is contracted by the military and he’s here on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. When we first got here it was an old man. In addition to your $5 haircut, plus tip, you would get a full head and face massage. Now I didn’t get in soon enough to have that experience so will have to rely on my brethren to comment on what it was like to have your face, head and earlobes, yes, earlobes, massaged.

By the time I went, the old man had been replaced by a young guy with a bouffant hair cut. I do not lie! His hair is long and thick and looks like it’s been teased a little. Maybe a lot. He doesn’t give you a head massage and I think I’m grateful.

I keep telling him to cut it short on the sides and finger-length on top. He does OK on the sides. He uses the clippers so that should be easy. He must have incredibly fat fingers when he picks up a pair of scissors because my hair is never as short as I tell him. In fact, I have to ask him to cut it shorter after he’s done, every time. I don’t know if he has an aversion to short hair or is just incapable of cutting hair short. Merrill has the same problem. His hair doesn’t get cut short enough. I may have to start getting my haircut when I’m at Phoenix as the girls there cut it short enough. (Before I got this posted, I did get my haircut at Phoenix and it is short.)

But that’s not what prompted me to write this entry. I was standing in front of a sink and mirror in the bathroom with shaving cream on my neck, holding a handheld mirror in one hand and a razor in the other, trying to shave the back of my neck? Have you ever done that? Ohmygosh!! It’s hard. I usually have my wife shave my neck but since my wife has not been around for the last 5 months I either ignore it and let it go until my next haircut or I have to resort to doing it myself.

Why not have someone else do it you say? Well I thought about it and quite frankly, I’m comfortable enough in my own manhood that it wouldn’t bother me to have someone else do it provided they didn’t stand too close and I could see both of their hands at the same time and the one not holding the razor was not like, resting on my hip or anything. But other than that, yea, I could have someone else do it.

But then I thought, “Who would I ask?” I could ask Steve but he lives two buildings down from me and I don’t imagine he would really want to trudge down to the latrine in my building just to shave my neck. I know we’re good friends but I didn’t want to push the envelope. I could never ask Ken because who knows where his non-razor hand would be – KIDDING!!! I couldn’t ask Aaron as I’d hear “oops” and feel the razor travel half way up my neck before it stopped amidst cackles of laughter. So I decided I couldn’t ask anyone.

And then I thought, “Would that look to, um, you know, weird – to have another guy shaving my neck?” I decided it would so resorted to doing it myself.

For the longest time I thought I was the only one who shaved the back of his neck until one morning I saw one of our slightly older NCO’s shaving his neck. He was brave. He was doing it without the aid of a mirror. But now that I think of it, maybe he was just smart.

Trying to hold that stupid mirror and razor, having to reverse the image as I shaved proved to be a challenge. Sometimes I do a good job, but this time I cut a nice little notch out of my neckline. Of course that meant that I had to try and repair the damage. I think I was somewhat successful but it was a royal pain. (Well I was wrong. When it came time to trim my neck, the asked if I wanted my hair tapered or a rounded cut. I told her round. She then said, “Your round no good.” Of course I knew what she was talking about. I must have done a pretty poor job. Oh well. Maybe I’ll have to ask Steve after all.)

And that’s when it hit me, this would make a great blog entry.

Whaddya think?