Hair Cut(e)

I don't need it to be TMI Thursday to talk to you about things that happen to me while I'm sitting on the toilet.

You know me well enough by now-- I don't care. I'll even go into the splatter pattern with C.S.I.-like detail.

Today, though, something happened to me while I was sitting on the toilet that isn't gross or pornographic or necessitating notification of the local authorities.

I got a haircut.

See, back in November when I was Major-General-ing in Pirates of Penzance I didn't only grow out my walrus moustache and mutton chops, I also grew out my hair. Since the show ended, I've been trying in vain to schedule a haircut, but my barber, who is approaching elderly, only works Thursday nights, Fridays and Saturdays-- so it's a challenge to get in to see him.

So, the long and short of it is, my hair is long, not short. I haven't had a haircut since probably late August. The back is starting to curl around my ears, making me look like a stereotypical used car salesman or a local news anchor from 1974.

While at work, I called my barber yesterday afternoon at around two-thirty. The receptionist who probably has laryngeal cancer and throat AIDS answered the phone. She talks like a combination of the nasty woman from "Throw Mama From the Train" and a herpetic toad.

"Hoiya, hun," she growled happily, sounding today more like Columbo's car exhaust.

She told me I could get a haircut if I got there immediately.

"Well, I can't do that," I said, "I'm at work."

"Well, Merry Christmas. God loves you, baby," she purred, about as sexily as Mike Mulligan's steam shovel.

That meant I wouldn't be getting a haircut until well after New Year's, which was patently unacceptable. The back of my neck looks like it's covered in a patch of brown broccoli.

I asked my wife yesterday evening if she would cut my hair.

"No," she answered.

I asked her this afternoon if she would cut my hair-- after making her a large cup of Mocha hot chocolate.

"Yes," she answered. Note to self: next time you want sex-- start warming up the soy milk.

"Where do you want me to give you your haircut?" she asked.

"On the toilet, of course," I answered readily.

When I was a little boy, that's where my mother gave me my haircuts. I would sit on the toilet, and she would spin me around to get to the sides and back of my hair. We had a large bathroom-- lots of room for her to work and for me to spin. Though I wouldn't let anyone else near my hair until I was 6, I was embarrassed by even her haircuts, and frequently wore a hat for a week or so after I received even just a trim.

As I sat down on the toilet of the home I bought with my wife, as she tucked a towel under my t-shirt and snipped away, well, there just wasn't any way I was going to escape this haircut without getting all nostalgic. They say that, in lasting relationships, we look for a partner who is expected to undo all of the wrongs done to us by our parents. I guess we also look for a spouse who can give us haircuts on the toilet, too.

I smiled when, not five minutes after my wife completed my haircut, the phone rang. It was my mother. I told her what had just transpired in our upstairs bathroom.

"That's very nice, honey," she said. "Are you wearing a hat?"