Hair Cut Lady

I got my hair cut today. Not really cut. More like trimmed and shaped. Out of my eyes, etc.

I haven't had my hair cut in over a year. Once upon a time back in college I had hair down to my nipples. In recent years I've sported a more military type cut. It was comfortable and cheap. But I started growing it out because 1) I rarely have money to get it cut these days and 2) my Canadian wife wanted me to look less GI Joe and 3) I've proven to the world I'm a responsible adult, so I might as well look however the hell I want. Maybe it's a mild mid-life crisis.

A long time ago when my hair was short and sort of styled (pre-GI Joe days) I use to go to the Hair Cut Lady. I stumbled upon her by accident and found her to be the best around. Then I went broke and visited an old fashioned barber for a couple of years. But I had one-too-many bad haircuts with the barber. So over a year ago I went back to HCL. She had changed salons and thus her price dropped. She fixed everything the barbers screwed up and I said, "You'll be my hair cutter for life!". Then I grow my hair out for 15 months...and don't see her until today.

I like the Hair Cut Lady. Spunky and opinionated, she's about my age (mid 30s), real rock-n-roll looking, married to a guy who owns a tattoo shop down from the salon she works at, and has 2 beautiful teenage daughters that she loves. And I think they're into the biker scene as well. And oh yeah, as of last November they now own and operate a neighborhood bar.

Basically, HCL is an anomaly within the ridiculously religious culture of the fair mother city: a fully functional family that has no religious baggage and living the fast life. There's not too many folks like them around here.

I love them. If I ever wanted another tattoo I'd visit her husband. If I ever patronized drinking holes I'd spend money at theirs. But mean while, my hair needs cutting every so often so I'll go see HCL.

She and her husband get to see and serve the slice of life that the church crowd misses (or ignores): tattoo lovers and tattoo artists, the bar crowd, drunks, crippled elderly ladies getting their hair permed, and jackasses like me getting my hair cut once in a blue moon.

I admire (and I'm slightly jealous of) their ability to move in and out of the unchurchy parts of the fair mother city while raising well behaved and dignified school aged kids.

Although I'm not 100% positive on this, my agent instincts tell me that they do not know the CEO. I really hate writing that. There's a fine line between judgment and discernment. But I remember once HCL being mad at how churchy this town is. If she only knew how I could relate. She grew up here so I'd bet she has a church background somewhere. I pray that they would know the peace of Jesus someday.

I don't know who, what, when, where, or how...but I'd like to have more contact with Hair Cut Lady. Maybe the CEO might create some kind of alliance like that between an agent and a snitch (a snitch is someone who gets paid under the table by the agent for spying in areas the agent can't operate in for whatever reason).

Maybe I just need to get my hair cut more often...