FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
Two things I hate. (Only two, Ger? Okay maybe three, now moving rapidly on). Two things I hate: I’m searching for a space in a busy parking lot, I spy one just up ahead but as I’m approaching someone cheekily shoots in before me. Hate that. I curse and swear and call the driver every name under the Sun. Names that would make my dear departed mother turn in her grave, names that I probably picked up from my father (sorry, Da).
The second thing that I hate is going for a haircut and just as I approach the barber’s door some fellow walks in before me. Lord, how I hate that. Worse than the parking scenario. I just hate having to wait for a haircut. I have better things to be doing than sitting for ages in the barber’s, leafing through old magazines or scrolling through my phone. And if I don’t have better things to be doing I convince myself that I have.
So, I’m not prepared to sit and wait while Life passes me by. And besides I’m only having my hair-cut because my wife wants me to. I’m quite prepared to let my hair (my grey hair) grow long and languid making me look poetic, artistic and interesting! My wife assures me, however, that a haircut takes years off me. Game, set and haircut then to Mrs M.
So, if there’s more than one person waiting – I’m gone. Now as it happened a fellow did walk into the barber’s before me just last week. I almost resorted to my lexicon of curse and swear words but didn’t because there were only the two of us, himself and myself, in the premises. He’s up first and makes himself comfortable in the barber’s chair while I calmly await my turn and peruse a copy of The Kilkenny Observer (this barber’s got good taste in reading material).
And then, just as I am about to read John Ellis’s financial advice column, my man (he’s young, early 20s, I reckon) pipes up: “A No. 2 please, then a three and back then to a one.’”I’m not sure whether he’s having a hair-cut or doing the Lotto. What the hell is it with all the numbers? I know it has something to do with the blades but he seems to have some sort of mathematical formula, tried and tested I assume, for his hairdo.
In my entire life I have never involved numbers when it comes to a haircut. And God be with the late Sheamie Bolger, a master of the ‘short-back-and-sides’ who did not entertain numbers when plying his trade. Sheamie sat you down, scissored up, snipped away and away you went. And whatever about you being happy, or unhappy, with the cut your mother was more than happy as you didn’t have to visit Sheamie again for another two, or three, months. Maybe more.
Ah, yes, Sheamie, God rest him, was some stylist! As for my man he was only getting started. He also wanted some ‘gradation’ (whatever the hell that is) leaving the long bits plus a touch of a mullet on top! Good God! Is he having a haircut or is he having his entire scalp reconfigured? As I’m sitting behind this guy listening to his litany of requests I’m thinking I’m going to be here until the Strait of Hormuz reopens!
But that’s youngsters these days – they’re very much into their looks, their image; moisturisers, anti-ageing creams, exfoliating emollients – these are just a few of the cosmetics young men spend good money on to make themselves look, dare I say, beautiful? God be with the days (my young days) when a splash of Old Spice and a dab of deodorant were the only beauty products to help us ‘conquer’ the Carlton.
The Carlton, however, and the lovely girls therein, dancing mostly in groups together were not for ‘conquering’, not with Old Spice anyway. Eventually, and I mean eventually, when my man was finished I was called to the chair. “What can I do for you?” my friendly barber asked and I like to think that he was mightily pleased, maybe even relieved, when I said: “A decent haircut, please.”
