In my youth, I did not pay much mind to my appearance. I believed that a man should and would be judged by, as the great Martin Luther King once said, the content of his character. However, with age has come wisdom, and one bit of wisdom I have incorporated into my thinking is that people are foolish and judge based on the look of a man rather than by what he says or does.
Since I cannot change human nature (another unfortunate bit of wisdom I have obtained), if I wish to make a good impression on others, I know that I must keep a neat and professional appearance. Therefore, it is important to me to have a good haircut. I regularly visit the barber shop down the street from where I live. Rahul, the barber, knows precisely how to cut my hair so that it will bring me the proper respect from and admiration of others.
That is, he did. Last week, Rahul met a premature end, it seems, in what his heartbroken wife could only describe to me as a "snowblower accident". What he might have been doing with a snowblower on a warm April day baffles even my mind, but I like to think he was perfecting some kind of innovative hair-snipping technique, for he took pride in his societal role as a barber.
Rahul's death caused me great anxiety, as my hair had gotten a bit longer than I prefer it to be. I had planned on visiting his shop soon for a trimming. Alas, it was not to be. Lost and confused, I instead found myself wandering the streets of Manhattan, not sure which barber to use. It was then that I made one of the biggest mistakes of the past several fortnights: I ventured into a seemingly benign establishment known as Supercuts.
I was aware of Supercuts as a hair salon franchise, but I had never used their services due to my disdain for any retail store with "super" in its name (I find it distasteful). I do not know what came over me, but I put aside that disdain and walked through the door.
I was greeted by a youth with hair far too many colors in his hair to be presentable. This should have tipped me off, but I suppose I was too nervous to pay it much mind at the time. The apparent ignoramus motioned wordlessly for me to have a seat, at which point a young girl approached me, her face as blank as the mind behind it, and asked me for my preferences. I had to repeat myself several times, despite the relative simplicity of my request.
She immediately pulled out the hair clippers, which caused me to shout out.
"That is not right!" I chastised her. "You cannot begin a haircut with clippers! You must first use scissors!"
I should have stormed away then, in retrospect. It was a wrong decision to sit back down and compose myself as I did. However, I am a man who is attuned to the feelings of others, and as such, I did not want to hurt the feelings of the girl. I informed her that scissors were to be used first in a proper haircut, and that clippers were merely for shaping the edges of the hair.
My instructions were met with some mumbles barely above the volume of silence, after which she obediently produced scissors from a drawer and began to snip away at my hair. I noticed that she did her work differently from how Rahul did his, but for some reason I believed that this variation was not dangerous. I am a man whose mind is open, and I recognize that there can be multiple paths to a good end. My normally flawless instincts failed me as I let her continue her ruination of my head.
She worked quickly - too quickly. After a few short minutes, she pronounced herself done and held a mirror so that I could see the back of my head. It was atrocious, to be mild. Her incompetence now apparent to me, I leapt from my chair and sneered at her. She backed away, recognizing perhaps that I was not one to stand for such inferior skills. I informed her that she needed to find another line of work, at which point the ignoramus boy with the ridiculous hair came to her defense, saying something unimportant to which I did not listen because I was so angry with both of them.
I turned to leave, but the ignoramus then said to me (imagine a foolish cracked voice here), "Hey mister, that's twenty-one dollars."
I turned back slowly. The incredulity must have been apparent in my facial expression, as they both flinched. Imagine that: not only charging for a substandard, clearly amateur haircut, but charging twenty-one dollars! Rahul had never charged me more than twelve!
I refused payment on the grounds that they had not provided the service (a quality haircut) for which they wanted me to pay. The ignoramus threatened to call the police, but I astutely pointed out that an officer would take one look at my head and lock them both away. In the end, in my mercy, I reached an agreement with them that I would leave and never return.
This was three days ago, and my rage only deepens. Supercuts is now my enemy. The world must stop its support of substandard, overpriced haircuts immediately. Find a barber - a good quality barber, like the late Rahul - instead. Do not give money to the charlatans and fools. I wish nothing but destruction and decay for Supercuts.
