Guy Gadbois

There is one place I really dread going.

(At this point, most of you are thinking, "Oh boy, here comes an excruciating dentist story." Well, it's not a dentist story, but you're close--going to the dentist sucks.)

The place I'm talking about is the barber shop, or more accurately, *sigh* "hair salons." I went to such a place yesterday because my hair was betraying me to hippiedom. I don't think it was necessarily a "hair salon," but I hesitate calling it a barber shop. When I think of "barber shop," I think of the red and white striped pole and hunting magazines on a rack and ol' Gus giving "the usual."

The place I went to yesterday didn't have a red and white striped pole--it had pink lettering. They did have magazines, but they weren't of the hunting variety.
(side note: I'm not even a hunter, but whilst undergoing such an emasculating activity as having your head "beautified," a hunting magazine looks a lot better in your hands than say "Teen 17 Girlween Magazine.")

And ol' Gus the barber was replaced by "young female hairstylist."

Now, most of you guys are thinking, "C'mon now, it couldn't have been that bad, could it?" obviously referring to the final change.

But I'm serious, give me ol' Gus any day. He may be a little hard on the eyes, but he has one redeeming quality: If ol' Gus knows you don't want to talk, he won't make you talk.

He'll just shut up and do his job--a quiet, efficient, American job.

Young female hairstylist on the other hand will ask you question after question, and not be satisfied with noncommittal grunts. And they're not good questions like, "Why do the Star Wars prequels suck so much?" They're tricky questions, designed to trick me into talking about what female hair stylists talk about, like pop music, and shampoos, and *sigh* feelings.

Heck, I'll take the dentist over that. They discourage talking there. Anytime you try to speak to the dentist, the nurse rams sharp, metal objects into the roof of your mouth.

That's the way it should be at the hair shop. I mean, they even have sharp scissors. Anytime someone tries to speak to them, they should just clip off a little of the talker's ear. That would shut him up real quick.

But no, they want you to talk--like their job is mind-numbingly boring without constant chatter. I'm not buying that. How can any job where you get to routinely cut the mullet be boring?

So I don't know if I'm going to go to the hair shop again. But how will I keep my hair from becoming unruly? Simple. Anytime my hair begins approaching hippie proportions, I'll casually walk past my friend Doug Downs with a razor in my hand.

He won't hesitate to take action.