Gimme a Head with Hair

While the adjectives that describe me are many and varied, it is fair to say that I’ve always been an $11 haircut kind of guy. Quite simply, I’m not a person who has ever cared too much for his appearance, which may be how I ended up 60 pounds overweight. However, having lost all that weight (which is another story) I decided that it was time for a big boy haircut. Taking the suggestion of my friend Josh (who is definitely a person who cares about his appearance, as the tailored suits, monogrammed shirts, manicures, trophy fiancée and Latvian stripper mistress will prove) I went to DC’s Grooming Lounge.

The Grooming Lounge is not, as many people seem to think, a pet grooming establishment, though I don’t imagine they’d object to you bringing in your dog. You get the sense they wouldn’t object to anything you chose to do as long as you ponied up the cash for it. It is, rather, a spa of sorts, but for men only. The men only aspect becomes apparent even before you walk in, as the windows are heavily tinted. In fact the windows are so black they appear to be, to paraphrase Dave Barry, tinted with roofing tar. It gives the appearance of a strip club, which may be the idea. The illusion continues when you enter and are greeted by two stunning women ready to take your coat and offer you a drink. No one at Hair Cuttery has ever offered me a Sam Adams while I waited. Actually, they may have – I can’t understand most of the things that people say to me at Hair Cuttery.

After being led into a sort of backroom (again, keeping up the illusion of being at topless place and hey, I’m going to the VIP room!) I meet Shirin, my stylist, or hair mistress, or whatever they’re calling them these days. Shirin is perfectly pleasant and brutally honest, which I need in a hair stylist. Usually when I get a haircut, I am asked two questions – how would I like my hair cut, and have I always had such thick hair. The answer to the second question is usually just “yes,” since it makes no sense to launch into a tirade about how I had thin, blonde hair until I was about four and was pissed when it somehow turned into a layered brown mess that resembles moldy shag carpeting. With regard to the first question, I’m never sure how to describe how I want my hair cut, so I usually end up getting a stylist who never touches a pair of scissors, but instead takes off large swaths of hair and occasionally a bit of skull with massive electric clippers, after which my look is best described as (to quote my wife) a white boy fade.

After years of this happening, I decided I don’t want my stylist to ask me what I want. I have no idea what I want, which is why I rarely get haircuts. You’re the stylist, you tell me what would look good and we’ll run with it. Shirin seems to know this. “You look like a hockey player,” she says. It is not a compliment, but rather an observation on the mullet-esque redneck look I've got going. “How many months are we taking off?” I like that question better. I liked the way I looked back in October, make me look like that again. We begin with a shampoo and conditioning, which I’m told isn’t even optional. I usually decline the shampoo at Hair Cuttery because they seem to care less about washing my hair and more about massaging my brain right through my skull. I believe that various parts of my skull are completely misshapen as a result of Hair Cuttery shampoos.

While the conditioner “sets” (whatever that means) Shirin puts a hot towel on my face. I’ve decided that my life would be infinitely more relaxing if it had more hot towels in it. My daughter poops on the living room rug? Hot towel. My son decides to drop trou and fondle himself in the mall? Hot towel. My boss informs me I need to be on a flight to Alabama tomorrow morning to meet with the Governor? Gonna bring ten towels, a jug of water, and a microwave. We'll hot towel together, the guv and I. I’m all about the hot towels.

We finally get around to the actual cutting of hair, and it’s amazing how meticulous Shirin is. She actually seems to be cutting individual hairs, staring at my skull the way a painter looks at a canvas. While she cuts, we chat amicably and I realize it’s nice to have my hair cut by someone I can understand. Usually I just smile and nod as they talk about whatever country they came from and how it’s better to cut hair in America because the customers usually don’t beat and rape them. However, every once in a while Shirin will stop cutting and just start talking to the side of my head. I can’t decide if I should turn and face her and risk impaling an eye on her scissors.

We talk about our respective families; she’s 26, divorced with two kids, and her husband has recently been in two separate minor car accidents in which he accidentally and through no fault of his own drove his car over people who were crossing the street. I’m thinking if that happens once, bad luck, but twice? Might be best to watch the kids as they peddle their tricycles around daddy’s ride.

She goes into much more intimate detail about her life, and I realize that this is why so many women spend so much time in the salon. In general, the average person’s life is ridiculously dull. We get up, kiss the wife and kids goodbye, go to work, come home, play with the kids until they go to bed, give the wife a little pickle tickle, watch Letterman, and sleep. Repeat 364 times and another year of your life is gone. For some reason, hair stylists seem to have completely fascinating lives. They do all sorts of amazing things. Now the bulk of it might be complete BS, but they’ve got a captive audience that often comes back not for the quality hair styling but for the updates. I got suckered right in.

After about 75 minutes, the last 15 of which were spent with Shirin making almost indiscernible changes and saying “I don’t like that…really don’t like that…holy crap, that’s awful…” she finally wraps up. It takes her another ten minutes to alternately blow and vacuum stray hairs off my shoulders and out of my ears, which I imagine has got to be horribly unpleasant for her.

When I get to the counter to pay, I find that all the products Shirin has used on my hair (shampoo, conditioner, some kind of setting solution) as well as some she hasn’t (shaving cream) are on a (literally) silver platter, ready for me to purchase. The presentation is so nice that I feel bad not buying anything, so I drop $14 on the setting solution, which has the texture and smell of expired furniture polish. Sexy.

I realize I can never get another haircut from anyone else, which is fine, because the $50 (plus tip) I’m dropping on this is more entertaining than any movie or concert, and I’ll leave here looking and smelling good instead of disheveled, tired, and smelling like popcorn and/or weed. Next time I’ll get a pedicure and a wax.