So, I should start by saying that there are few things I dread more than appointments, and few appointments I dread more than haircuts, although I am getting better since I figured out how to convey what I want to the hair-cuttest.

I don’t know anything about cutting hair, so I didn’t have the vocabulary to effectively communicate what I wanted. Until that is, I went to a barber and asked for a pompadour. I didn’t know, until he was done cutting my hair, that a pompadour was a type of haircut that can be styled any number of ways. I thought a pompadour was a particular style. Now, it may seem obvious to you that it’s a specific haircut, but it wasn’t to me, so cut me some slack.

With this new information, it was like I had unlocked a secret level in the world of cosmetology. I could go into any barbershop or salon, ask for a pomp – a shorthand version of pompadour that I learned from the barber – and whoever was going to cut my hair would know exactly what I was talking about. And with a few more questions about length and preference, I could get the haircut I wanted every single time. Why don’t they teach this shit in schools?

I didn’t go back to that barber because they only accepted cash, like we live in 1995, so I looked around for other options. Supercuts was out because I had never had a good haircut at any of their locations. Of course, I hadn’t been since I learned barber-speak, but I still haven’t gotten over one of the last haircuts I had at a Supercuts.

What happened was 49% the stylist’s fault, 49% Bonnie’s fault, and 1% my fault. We’ll blame the universe for the remaining 1%. I brought Bonnie along with me in hopes that she might be able to communicate with the stylist, and she did, far more than I had bargained for. The two of them talked nonstop. While the stylist was cutting my bangs, she was looking at Bonnie, who was telling a story. She kept cutting and cutting and cutting, all the while looking at Bonnie, until my bangs were just an inch and a half long. Needless to say, she’s never been invited to a haircut since.

So, in my quest to find a decent haircut, I decided to give Sport Clips a second chance. I had been there once, many, many years ago, and while I was satisfied with the haircut I received, I was more than a little uncomfortable with the vibes. First off, I hate sports, and sitting in a sports-themed room is mildly torturous, but what really turned me off to the place was the massage.

This was during a time in my life when I was much more neurotic than I am now, and I really, really didn’t like strangers touching me. I still don’t like strangers touching me, but I’ve reached a point in my life where I can appreciate a hot girl’s hands on me. At that time, though, the idea of a stranger rubbing my shoulders was a nonstarter. She didn’t even ask me if I wanted a massage; she just said that the haircut starts with a massage, and I just said, “Yeah, we can skip that part.” She was taken aback and asked if I was sure, and assured me that it was complimentary, which oddly made the whole idea worse, so I simply repeated, “Yeah, we can just skip that part,” so she just cut my hair.

Fast forward to December 2024, I went back, and I was surprised to find that they had a record of my last haircut there. I was a bit impressed, but I was also a little disappointed that the woman who cut my hair didn’t even offer me a massage, and I suspected that there must have been a note in my file about it. She asked me if I wanted my hair washed, but I had just washed it before I came in. It was still wet for fuck’s sake. I told her I didn’t, so she just cut my hair. I was happy with my haircut, so I went back in March.

This time, a different woman cut my hair. She didn’t say anything about a massage either, and I didn’t see anyone else getting rubbed down, so I wondered if maybe they curtailed the massage program. She did, however, ask me if I wanted my hair washed, and I said that I had just washed it, but unlike the woman who cut my hair a few months earlier, she mentioned that some guys like to have their hair washed so they don’t have loose hairs falling off of their head for the rest of the day. Ooooohhhh, I thought, she means after my haircut. That was never specified before, but I still didn’t want it washed.

So, that brings us to today’s haircut. I checked in on my way to the store. It said there was no wait, but I learned the value of checking in last time. I checked in and got to the store a split second after another customer who walked in just ahead of me, but hadn’t checked in, so they took me back first. Neener, neener.

There were two employees sitting in the waiting area, slumped over their phones. Neither of them acknowledged me at first. After a few seconds, one of them, an older woman with long, bright purple hair with a full sleeve of Nightmare Before Christmas tattoos on her left arm, and most of a sleeve of sugar skulls and what looked like Sally on her right arm, but I can’t be sure because her head was under her shirt sleeve, asked me if I had checked in. I told her I had, and she turned around to look at a TV mounted on the wall behind her. It had two names on it, mine and some other guy’s. I don’t think either of the women had noticed the appointments until I walked in the door.

The purple-haired woman took me back without a word and guided me to her chair. She looked at the slip of paper she printed from the computer and confirmed what I wanted, and then she got to work. After a minute or two, she asked me how my day was. It didn’t seem like small talk came naturally to her, which was fine with me because I can do without it.

Small talk might not have been so bad today, though, because the only other noise in the store was coming from a TV where some talking head was prattling on about what LeBron James should or shouldn’t do, as if the sportsball team owners were tuned in waiting for this guy’s appraisal of the situation, so they could make their decision. He even had guests on the show weighing in, and they were speaking so seriously and with such authority that one might be led to believe that anything they said actually mattered.

I felt really bad for what I was putting this woman through. I had walked to the store from the post office, which was about 1/4 mile away, and it was about 84º outside. Not hot, but certainly warm. My ears and neck were sweaty, and when she began spraying my hair with water, I could feel the heat rising off my scalp. At one point, she asked me if it was hot out. I told her it was. She said that she’d been in the store since 8:30 a.m., so she didn’t know what was going on outside. I told her to stay in there until after 7 p.m.

She laughed and went on to say that when she was off, she was taking her kids to the bowling alley, where it always seemed to be chilly. I had an inclination to keep the conversation going by asking about her kids and their plans, but I didn’t really care, so why fake it?

About 3/4 of the way through my haircut, other customers began to arrive. Two of them were bald. I’m talking nothing on top, not even a comb over, just the classic, albeit shaggy, horseshoe. What are you wasting your money for? I thought. The third man, an older guy with a full head of salt and pepper hair, was seated next to me. The woman cutting his hair asked if he wanted his hair washed today, but he declined. I hoped that the woman cutting my hair would be reminded to ask me if I wanted my hair washed, because I didn’t want to have to go home and shower, and to my delight, she did.

So, when she was finished cutting my hair, I stood up to go to the back where the sinks were, and I noticed a boy, about 12 years old, sitting in one of the sink chairs. I thought that was odd because I hadn’t noticed him come in, and no one seemed to be attending to him. As I got closer, I saw another boy, maybe a year older, sitting next to him. They were both staring at their phones, and I suddenly realized these were her kids, the ones she was taking to the bowling alley later.

She had me sit at the sink directly across the aisle from her kids, and she adjusted the chair. Then, she turned the chair on and it began rumbling beneath me, sending pulsating vibrations through my butt and back. Maybe they replaced the personal massage with massage chairs, I thought.

Over the rumble of the massage chair, she asked me if I wanted a hot or cold “tap,” or at least that’s what I thought she said. I was already warm, and the thought of hot water on my scalp seemed awful, so I said cold. A moment later, she came back and laid a cold, tea tree-infused towel on my face. Towel, I thought, she said towel, not tap. I felt like an ass, but at least no one could see the ridiculous grin on my face.

She then proceeded to wash my hair. She had long fingernails filed to sharp points at the end that felt nice on my scalp. She could have used them more aggressively, and I would have been in heaven. Instead, though, she began to very slowly massage my scalp. The transition between washing my hair and massaging my scalp happened so slowly that I didn’t even notice at first. I just started to wonder if the dark room, towel on the face, massage chair, and scalp massage were meant to lull me to sleep so she could rob me.

She slowly and gently massaged every inch of my scalp. It felt nice, but my mind kept alternating between how relaxing the whole experience was and how bad I felt for putting this poor woman through this. She couldn’t possibly be paid enough to make this all worthwhile. On the upside, at least she got to wash all of my sweat off her hands.

I’ve only had massages from strangers twice in my life. The first time was on my honeymoon. My grandparents bought massages for Bonnie and me, but for whatever reason, we couldn’t do them together. So, Bonnie and I each had massages at the same time, but on opposite sides of the spa. It was weird.

The second time, I went with my friend to a foot massage place. His fiancée was having her bridal shower, so he wanted to go get massages, and since I’m such a good friend and groomsman, I humored him. This foot massage place was in a tiny little building, and it was packed to the gills. There were probably thirty foot massage stations set up in the main room, and every single one of them was occupied.

When one opened up, a young, attractive Asian woman took me back. A few minutes later, a second chair opened up, and they took my friend back. At that time, he was probably close to 300 pounds. His masseuse, and an older, grumpy-looking Asian man, sat down a moment later and said something to my masseuse in their native language, which I’m certain was something along the lines of, “Nice, you take the skinny one and leave me his fat friend.”

Now, I had never been to a foot massage place before, so I had no frame of reference for what to expect. I thought, as one might, that I was going to be getting my feet rubbed, and I did, eventually, but it didn’t start out that way. The woman sat down behind me and began by rubbing my shoulders, and as I’m writing this, it occurs to me that this may have been where my disdain for strangers touching me began.

The massage was nice, but it got weird. She moved from my shoulders to my neck, to my head, to my ears. She rubbed my earlobes and then worked her way up to the tops of my ears before sticking a finger in each ear and wiggling them. She had to be fucking with me. I mentioned the fingers in the ears to my friend when we left, and he had never heard of such a thing, let alone experienced it. She was fucking with me.

So, back in the hair washing chair, I was reaching what I thought was the pinnacle of my discomfort with having a stranger sensuously rubbing my scalp, when I suddenly remembered that all of this was going on with her kids sitting just feet away! This strange woman was giving me, a stranger, a head job in front of her kids! What the fuck! My discomfort flew off the charts, and I just wanted it to be over. When she was done, we went back to the salon chair, and she asked if I wanted a shoulder massage. Fuck no!

So, what did I learn today, kids? Well, I learned that I might drop dead from discomfort if I were ever to visit a brothel. Paying to have strangers touch you and make you feel good requires a level of socialization that I don’t think I will ever reach. I’ve always been intrigued, but now I’m even more fascinated with people who are either so hyper-social or maybe just so desperate that they don’t mind such intimate interaction with a complete fucking stranger. Glad am I to be married.