Haircut: The Star Trek Kind
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When I moved to Manila, the stylist to whom I’ve given the thankless task of cutting my hair made me promise not to do it myself ever again. Because I used to, all the time. Hey, it’s just hair. It always grows back. Besides, my mom used to give me bowl cuts back when she was alive. This is how the bowl cut looks, by the way. Compared to that, all the haircuts I’ve ever given myself always seem better by default. Last night, I broke my promise, and now I am wearing a beanie because I do not know what to make of the mop on my head. This is what happened: my hair had gotten a bit too long for comfort, and was starting to bother me. I’ve always worn my hair short so I won’t have to think about it every time I take a shower and end up with wet locks. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a haircut before leaving for Slovenia. I am very well aware that the sensible thing to do would have been to google the salon nearest to the hotel. But the cheapskate that I am, I didn’t want to pay Euros for a cut here in Spain, not when I normally pay only 60 pesos for a cut back home. So, I decided to chop off my hair myself. (See what I mean about being a cheapskate? I have it bad. That’s what happens, I suppose, when one is raised by a grandmother who lives so frugally she saves up the flour sacks and makes shorts out of them. You’d think I’ve had to live through the Potato Famine or at least the Great Depression; I actually resent occasions when I have to fork over cash for overpriced coffee just because the person I’m meeting want to meet in Starbucks!) But I digress. We were talking of my botched haircut. Horror of horrors, mid-cut, I discovered I couldn’t get either side to be symmetrical! Now, there are only three people that I know in Bilbao who happened to be within arm’s reach, but I trudged back to the hotel earlier than both Gracias and Lina so chances are, they wouldn’t be back in their rooms yet. That leaves only Khavn who skipped wine night to do some more work on EDSA XXX. I’d ask the nice Basque women who do the hotel housekeeping for help, but I learned the hard way on Day Two that they do not speak a word of English. Left with only one choice, I barged in on Khavn hammering away on his laptop, and forced him to finish my haircut. He was appalled, and initially put up some fight (“I’m busy.” “That’s not something you ask a guy to do, man.” “Ask Gracias to point you to a salon tomorrow.”), but I brandished comb and scissors as menacingly as I could, and talked him into it. Don’t feel sorry for him, though; he gets to have the last laugh. Guess who’ll look like she walked out of a Star Trek set tomorrow. This is the aftermath:
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