Hair

Hair ©

By

Michael Casey

I had my hair cut yesterday, I was turning into an Old English Sheepdog, so I had it cut. My wife cuts my hair, she used to use just scissors, but then we invested £10 for electric clippers. A haircut is 10quid in most barbers, which is expensive. So the wife does the honours, she is very good. She also cuts the girls’ hair too.

When she used scissors I want told to sit on a chair in the yard, then she’s poke and prod me, just like a sheep having its annual shearing. She’d laugh as she sheared me, pulling my left ear then my right ear, so I’d be in the right position. I’d grumble and watch as the snow fell. The snow being the colour of my hair, but at least my hair is thick and soft. I tell her we should use my hair as stuffing for pillows.

My daughters would come out and tell me I have a bald patch appearing, so I’m some sort of street theatre, or like a sinner in the stocks. Why don’t they invite the neighbours to come and throw cabbage at me. And still the snow falls, no black or brown left, I am Snow White. Maybe that’s why I’m called Granddad when I do the school run.

Finally with a slap here and a slap there, all in aid of getting rid of stray hairs sticking to my body, I am told to stand up and shake myself in the garden, just like a wet dog.  My barber is satisfied with her work, then she demands £10.

Once we had the clippers I was allowed to have my haircut inside, in the warmth of our bathroom. Though sitting on the toilet for 30 mins is not comfortable, again I am prodded and poked and slapped,  like a bullying flower arranger, the flowers would have to be made of steel to survive, but dad was a blacksmith, so I am forged of steel.

Laughing as she works my wife chuckles as she cuts my hair, like a demon catching souls and sending them to hell. The snow continues to fall, I am slapped again, the snow must not block her view of her work. Turn this way, turn that way I am ordered. It feels like regimented foreplay, maybe this is how it’s done in North Korea. I should add my wife wears a bright red Korea Food apron every day, it’s her housefrau look. So I laugh a lot. When she leaves home, she then looks like a model, but not while cutting my hair.

She finishes and tells me I look like Bruce Willis, only I don’t have a vest, just a woolly jumper, with snow stuck to it. So she beats me again, to get the snow, my hair off the jumper. I tell her I’ll keep her another week for her barber skills. And so the romance goes on, she shouts after me to buy some broccoli as a reward for all her hard work. So I buy cabbage instead, men don’t know what vegetables look like, I am Bruce Willis after all. 

   

 this is and old photo, 8 years ago outside Symphony Hall Birmingham