Beware The Haircuts Of March

So it’s the Ides of March today.
I’ve been aware of the existence of the Ides for quite some time (thanks to Julius Caesar’s famous assassination), but only recently bothered to look into what the Ides actually are.
The end result is that I learned that Ides aren’t really anything special. “Ides” is simply a term indicating the 15th day of some months and the 13th of others.
So essentially when you say that March 15 is the Ides of March you’re saying that March 15 is March 15.
I hadn’t realized that all of the months had Ides, either, and learned that my birthday actually falls on the Ides of April.
Six years ago I would have been well-advised to “Beware the Ides of March,” as it was then that I got fired from a job for the first (though not last) time.
On this particular Ides of March I decided to take advantage of that coupon and get a cheap haircut at the sports place. The place itself wasn’t absolutely horrible, though the overwhelming sports motif was extremely cheesy.
I will say that it was an interesting change of pace to have the person cutting my hair barely speak English with a Mediterranean accent rather than an Asian or Hispanic one.
I also have to say that she certainly was meticulous, as it took her forever to finish cutting my hair. Whenever I thought she was finished she would grab the scissors or clippers again and touch up some area.
Apparently she wasn’t trained on working the register, though, so I had to stand and wait for a long time for the other person working there, a guy, to finish cutting someone else’s hair and ring me up.
Overall I’d say it’s an okay haircut, and the savings made the inconveniences worth it – this time.
I doubt that I’ll ever go back unless I get another coupon, as the regular price is higher than what I normally pay and the cheesy sports motif is off-putting.
Inside the place, along with the various sports crap, there were signs about franchise opportunities that said something along the lines of “Men get haircuts. Men watch sports. All investments should be this simple.”
As I was sitting in the chair, though, it occurred to me that there would be a better formula for success, something more along the lines of “Men get haircuts. Men dig hot chicks in tight, skimpy outfits.”
The end result of that line of thought would be something along the lines of a “Hooters” barbershop.
Sure, you could keep the sports thing if you wanted, but it wouldn’t be entirely necessary.
You could probably have extremely high profit margins, as you would be able to get away with charging at least twice as much as your competitors.
(The overall hotness of the chicks cutting hair, along with the skimpiness of their outfits, would determine just how much you could charge for haircuts.)
As a bonus, none of the cosmetologists you hired would necessarily need to be especially good at cutting hair.
Would I be willing to pay twice as much to get a crappy haircut if I were essentially getting a lap dance from a hot chick at the same time? Well, as I mentioned yesterday, despite everything else, I am a guy…
Honestly, though, it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten a haircut from someone I would want giving me a lap dance. Despite what movies and TV shows tell you, the average cosmetologist really isn’t that attractive (same goes for flight attendants).
One of the Asian girls at the place I usually get my haircuts is kind of cute, but she’s not really anything to write home (or a Threshold entry) about.
The girl who cut my hair today was sort of plain, shapeless, and mannish.
The last time I had my hair cut by someone attractive would have been back in Michigan.
She was definitely a cutie, with her thick mane of curly red hair and her pleasingly pear-shaped figure.
Beyond that, though, she was intelligent and probably the funniest woman I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t think anyone has ever made me laugh as hard as she did.
Over the years I’ve had many women tell me about how I’ve made them laugh and smile so much that their faces hurt afterwards (which, given the fact that it never got me anywhere, shows that having a sense of humor is no guarantee of success with women), but she was the only woman to ever have that effect on me.
And when she would lean me back and run her fingers through my hair as she worked the shampoo in…*Sigh*
I did actually ask her out once, though I did so in only the most general of terms (one of those do something sometime kind of things), and she had accepted – in theory.
In practice, though, the next time I saw her after asking her out (which, probably foolishly, was later that same night), she gave me the cold shoulder.
I'm talking absolute zero.
After that I think I got my hair cut by her a time or two, and while we still chatted amicably I didn’t bother broaching the subject of dating again.
When I had returned to Michigan from Minnesota briefly for the purposes of moving out of my apartment and picking up my car, my friend Eric, my brother-in-law Dean, and I went out to hit the bars before Eric and I headed back to Minnesota on the next day.
It was a good night, actually, one of only a few that I recall very fondly, and we all had a really good time.
In the course of our bar-hopping that night we went to a place known as the Uphill 41, a bar I was never particularly fond of, but in those days I was willing to go pretty much anywhere if drinking was going to be involved.
Almost as soon as I set foot in the place I heard a noise and saw a red blur hurtling towards me, and the next thing I knew a certain redheaded hairdresser had her arms wrapped tightly around me.
Despite her excitement and enthusiasm about seeing me that night nothing ever developed between us (which isn't surprising, considering that at the time I was moving to a different state).
The last time I saw her was when I’d been home visiting from Minnesota and she was cutting my mother’s hair. She said, “I thought you were gone for good.” I responded, “I am.”
The last I heard of her was several years ago when my sister reported that she’d gotten her hair cut by her and that she’d asked about me. My sister went on to say that she was pregnant and getting married.
So as thing stands she seems to be another one of my marriage success stories.
I never understood her hot and cold interest in me, but I learned long ago to stop trying to explic the often inexplicable behavior of women.
(And no, “explic” isn’t really a word)
As something of an interesting aside, and in order to provide a little more background, the red-haired hairdresser had actually been a student at the college I got fired from six years ago, though she had graduated before I asked her out.
I had noticed her on campus and found her attractive, but hadn’t approached her, as that would have been a no-no.
I do recall that on graduation day I saw her walking to her car after graduating with her daughter (who was like a miniature version of her), and one of her fellow graduates said “Your daughter is so cute!”
Her immediate response was, “Thanks, you want her?”
The response itself was funny on its own, but what made it comic gold, as far as I was concerned, was her perfect timing, and it made her really stand out in my mind.
I’d never really interacted with her, though, until well after graduation when I went in to where she worked to get a haircut (I hadn't known that she worked there ahead of time, in case you were wondering). She recognized me as “that photographer guy” from the college (photography was one of my many jobs), and struck up a conversation with me. She didn’t cut my hair (that time) as she was strictly working the register, but while I was waiting for the person who was going to cut my hair to finish up we talked for several minutes.
It was quite some time later when I went back for a haircut that she did cut it, and in addition to making my face hurt and making me feel like an awkward adolescent again by slowly, gently – yet forcefully – massaging my head as she washed my hair, causing me to drift of into a state of near-total blissful relaxation I was impressed by the fact that she actually remembered the things we had talked about that time months earlier.
Perhaps its a self-esteem issue, but I always tend to be surprised when people, particularly women, find anything I say to be memorable.
As for the other aspects of that first haircut, why only “near-total” relaxation, and why the “awkward adolescent” comparison, you ask?
Well, a specific part of me didn’t relax, and when she finished and said, “You can stand up now,” it was very much like being in school while going through puberty and being asked to stand up and write something on the board at an…inopportune moment.
But back to the topic of my firing on the Ides of March in 1999 (2,043 years after Caesar’s assassination), on that occasion, some months later, when she nearly tackled me as I entered the bar, she excitedly told me about having recently met someone else who worked at the college I’d been fired from. After discovering that he worked there, she’d angrily confronted him, asking, “Are you the one who got my friend Jon fired?”
For the record, he hadn’t been, and, in fact, I’d worked with him pretty closely when I was there and he regretted my absence, but I just found it extremely amusing that her first thought was to attack anyone associated with the college in an effort to defend me.
As I said, there was no explicing her behavior…
Tonight’s cooking class project is going to be cheesecake, apparently, and an extremely decadent-sounding variety of cheesecake at that.
I’ll most likely have pictures to post afterwards.
In any case, that’s it for now. As mentioned, I’ll undoubtedly be back with a post-cooking class entry.