Cutting it close | Saturday morning at the barbershop makes for a game of musical chairs
Bangor has been called “Lewiston, without the frills.” I have no idea what that means but people nod their heads knowingly when they hear it, so it must mean something. The jewel of the Penobscot has also been called “The Queen City” but no one seems to know what that’s about either.
On a recent Saturday, I had a meeting in northern Maine’s largest city. But on my way there I was detoured because of an accident on I-95, and I got lost out in the middle of nowhere, which is just the other side of Carmel.
Seeing someone on the side of the road, I stopped to ask for directions. I soon determined, just by looking at the fella, that he had a room upstairs that wasn’t finished and all the carpenters had walked off the job. But how clever do you have to be to give directions to Bangor, right? So I put my window down and said, “Excuse me sir, how do you get to Bangor?” He paused for a minute, and then replied, “My father takes me.”
I still managed to somehow find my way to Bangor. Since I had some time before my meeting, I decided to get a haircut and beard trim. A haircut on Saturday? What was I thinking? As most men know, Saturday mornings in barbershops are something like opening day at Fenway Park or the Friday after Thanksgiving in your typical Wal-Mart, except they’re not selling computers to early bird customers for $10.
Usually I’d attempt something like a haircut around mid-morning in the middle of the week, when my regular barber is often napping in the chair or watching “The View” or Rachael Ray. I’ve often had to wake my regular barber up and tell him to put away the bonbons and pick up some clippers.
In the case of your typical barbershops on your typical Saturday morning — even in Bangor — they’re most always mobbed with fathers and sons looking “to get their ears lowered” as they say in smart barbering circles. I also decided to up the ante by going to a four-chair barbershop at a time when all four barbers were clipping like crazy with both hands. Oh yes, and all 16 regular chairs were filled with waiting customers. I know now what I should have known then: It was a mistake.
First, since all the good reading material had been scoffed up by those already there, I was forced to read articles on things like tactical weapons, rimfire rifles and the dos and don’ts of selecting ammunition for my next deer hunt. I don’t want to say it was a waste of time, but since I only hunt birds these days I’m sure I’ll never use any of that good information, except maybe in columns like this.
While pretending to read, everyone waiting in the barbershop is also keeping an eye on the clipping action in the barber chairs to see who might be done next. The watch is made more frustrating because barbers have all those little things they do before they declare the haircut done — making a few last clips here and there, brushing hair off your shoulders, loosening the sheet and taking the tissue paper from around your neck, spinning you slowly one more time in the chair so you can see his finished handiwork from all angles.
It’s not even over when the customers stand up because there is often a lot of last-minute banter during the payment portion of the haircut. When the customer finally pays up and moves on, all those waiting look around at each other, trying to decide who should make the first move toward the free chair. Deli counters at supermarkets solved this problem years ago when they installed those number tags on a roll that you can just rip off. Barbershops don’t go by numbers, they let customers work out the “Who’s next?” issue among themselves.
At one point I rose to take a free barber chair just at the same time someone across the room rose for the same purpose. If it had been another time and we both had pistols on our hips, it’s likely there would have been a face-off and one of us would have ended up bleeding on the barbershop floor — and not from a botched straight razor shave that got too close.
I won’t say who got the chair next, but I think it’s an indication of the enlightened times we live in that we both walked away from the encounter.
John McDonald, an author, humorist and storyteller who performs throughout New England, can be reached at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.
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