#3 razor? Or #2?

I need a haircut.

Not because my hair is long at the moment (though that is usually one of the major factors when one does decide to get it done), but rather... well, because it looks like a mushroom. A graying, brown, manure-feeding mushroom.

Let me explain what I look for in a typical salon experience I have 3 key criteria that I am now thinking of amending owing to the fact that I look like an extremely tall fungi. These criteria are, of course, in no particular order:

- I don't want to make an appointment for a haircut. That's just dumb. Like I'm going to say to
the guys at work "No, I can't make it to happy hour today. I have a hair appointment." I'd
rather eat bark.

- I don't want to wait more than 10 minutes to get a haircut. I've got things to do. Like, I dunno,
happy hour.

- I don't want the actual shearing experience to last longer than fifteen minutes. I get antsy, and
to be quite honest, those damned electric razors they use get awfully close to your ears, and if
you're not squeamish about being cut by it, then it sounds like a flock of mosquitoes (note:
a mosquito does not fly in a 'flock'. This is 'creatove license') hovering by your ear.

So where does that leave me, given the above criteria?

The answer is easy: Super-Cuts, or some generic Fantastic Sam's kind of place that happens to be close by.

There are two types of cosmeticians (estheticians? Salonicians?) invariably employed there. They are either Asian women in their mid-thirties and above, very very sweet, and yet struggle a bit with the English language. They also wield a mean razor.

The other type who works there is under 24, has multiple piercings and red-lacquered hair on one side and completely shaved on the other. As a general rule, she is slightly overweight. She also has a boyfriend named Dutch who works at Firestone and the two share an apartment and- if not a kid- a pitbull or mastiff. Dutch is planning on getting his welder's license, and she is going open her own salon, typically somewhere in eastern Washington because she's sick of the wet Pacific Northwest.

Please note: none of the above information is ever, ever asked for or in any way encouraged. I guess the thought is that if you're holding a pair of shears and scissors behind someone who can't see what you're doing, YOU get to dominate the conversation.

Regardless of which one you get, however, they feel that have not done you true justice if they do not mercilessly shear every strand of hair that sticks out from the side of your head so that it will only stand out 2 mm beyond your scalp. Never mind the fact that you said 'I want a trim' or 'Just a little off the top'. No. That thicket on the side of your head must go. SKIN must be seen. There must be SCALP or, by golly, they didn't do the job right.

So at the end, when they have you sitting in front of the mirror asking you if you want gel in your hair, and you're thinking to yourself 'So THIS is what a plucked chicken looks like...', you realize that you have:

a) Saved money because you didn't get it done by a true stylist
b) Managed to get out of there in under 15 minutes
c) Thumbed through an old copy of 'People' magazine for 10 minutes until they called your
name
And d) look like you tried to save $15 dollars by taking a weed-whacker to your head

You also realize that maybe, just maybe, once a month, you should set aside happy hour and make a hair appointment.

Just don't tell the guys at work why you're not going to make it to the happy hour. They can all sit around and look like mushroom-heads by themselves.