I did a little dance of joy (“Numfar, do the Dance Of Joy!”) upon leaving the barbershop today: I got my hair cut by somebody who spoke English! OK, that might not seem like exclamation point territory to you, but it’s been something like 18 months since I’ve really been able to communicate with the person waving sharp pointy items around my head.
It started when I was living in New York. What’s the point in living in the greatest city on earth, in a burg filled to the brim with immigrants, I figured, if you end up eating at McDonald, shopping at the Gap and getting your hair cut at Joe’s House o’ Hair? So I was predisposed to hunt up something more exotic. Plus, I’m cheap. The combination led me to try out a couple of Russian barbers, vist a Japanese hair stylist and pop in on a couple of peluqueros. Didn’t pay much — plus I had the fun of trying to get across what I wanted done with my hair through sign language. Getting a haircut in Berlin — where the barbers are, I believe, not allowed to speak English — was especially enjoyable, since I know enough German to be dangerous. I’d think I was asking for a bit off the top and some shaping around the ears, but actually be telling the guy, “Ich möchte wie eine kranke Ratte aussehen.”
It doesn’t help that, even in my mother tongue, I really have no idea how to answer the questions barbers ask me.
Needless to say, it’s not uncommon for me to stumble out of a hair-cutting session looking remarkably like a lopsided cueball.
But I never complain. After all, it’s not like they can go back and fix it, right? “Oh, let’s just sweep up some of this hair on the floor. We have some superglue in the back.” And I can’t say much when the scalping is going on, considering that, not only am I blind without my glasses, but I’m loath to tick off the guy with the shears. It’s too easy for barbers to get revenge on persnickety customers.
Today, though, to my shock and amazement, I got a lovely young lass who’d been an exchange student in America for a year, spoke English better than I do and seemed quite able to deal with nothing more than “I’d like it shorter, but not too much shorter.”
Thus, the dance of joy.