A Cut Below

It can be very tiring with newborns. I don’t think I’m breaking any news when I tell you that. But imagine being in my shoes when Mama Bear pushes out a set of twins for our first children. Double freakin’ exhausting is putting it kindly.

It was shortly after my wife went back to work following her maternity leave. Junior Bear and Peanut Bear were probably only a few months old. I was playing stay-at-home Dad at that point (remember I was laid off just a few weeks after Mama Bear gave birth) and would also get up in the middle of the night for one of their two feedings (I usually took the 3 or 4 am feeding since Mama Bear was going to get up in a few hours to start her day).

This lack of sleep can really wreak havoc on a person, and I was no exception. We were feeding every three hours, the kids weren’t really sleeping through the night and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. I barely got out of the house and when I did I was hauling two baby carriers with me all over the place. It was really a trying time.

One day I was able to shake the kids and I went to the Hair Cuttery for a trim. If memory serves me right, it was a Saturday and Mama Bear stayed back with the kids.

I’m not going to lie when I say it’s nice to get out of the house by yourself every once in a while when you’re the primary daytime caregiver. It kind of gives you a chance to catch your breath.

Anyway, you know how this type of hair cut place works; you give your name and then wait for a stylist to come call your name. It’s kind of like the lottery in that you know who gives the good hair cuts at the place and who doesn’t just by looking at them and you are hoping and praying you don’t get called by someone who is going to butcher you.

So, I give my name and wait, hoping I don’t get the person who is going to screw up my hair. As I am sitting there, I am starting to fall asleep as I was exhausted. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. I was trying everything I could to stay awake, going as far as looking through the only magazine left, Oprah (or some magazine that is not supposed to be read by any self-respecting male).

Anyway, I finally get called up and the woman who was cutting my hair was someone I had gotten before. She did a good job the prior times, so I was glad to get her.

I slowly get up from my seat in the waiting area and work my way back to the chair. I plop down and she asks me if I would you like a wash first. I say sure and she takes me back to wash my hair.

Now, as you know this can be completely relaxing. I think at one point my leg jerked as I began to fall asleep. I quickly woke up and pretended like it never happened.

After she was finished I went back to the chair and immediately fell into a trance. See, I’m not -- let me repeat NOT -- the kind of guy who likes to chit-chat when getting my hair cut. I want the person who is cutting my hair to concentrate on the task at hand. There is no need to distract him or her. One slip up and all of a sudden I’m looking like Telly Savalas. So, once I sat down I almost immediately shut myself off.

As I’m sitting there I hear her say to me, “You remind me of Gary.”

So thinking I missed part of the conversation, I give a little giggle to play it off like I knew what she was talking about I reply, “Okay.”

She gives me somewhat of a dirty look, but I’m too tired to even care what she’s thinking.

Fast forward a few minutes and I’m at the register paying. She hands me the receipt and at the bottom it reads her name and it’s at this point I realized what she said to me earlier. She didn’t say, “You remind me of Gary.” She said, “My name is Mary.”

I was so tired I responded to someone introducing themselves to me with “Okay.”

I said Okay! I might as well have said to her, I don’t care who you are.

I couldn’t believe it. I was too embarrassed to say anything to her at this point. So I just paid, left her a tip, bolted out of there and never went back.

I began going to a different Hair Cuttery after that, but I do remember seeing her at the super market a week or so later and I again got a dirty look.