Shave and a Haircut

There’s always a point at which my mangy mop of curls just becomes too much for me to bear. I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror or a shop window and decide I look ridiculous. Time to lop it all off.

Now, I have trouble describing how I want my hair cut to fluent English speakers. I never know what to say. I like my hair short, a little longer on top than on the sides and in back. Unfortunately, this haircut does not have a name. I usually end up just asking to leave looking presentable.

So, on Monday (Feb. 19, I swear I’m going to start writing and posting these things the day they happen) I sat in my room, hunched over an English-Arabic dictionary, trying to formulate some sort of sentence explaining that which I can’t quite explain.

I settled for “approximately this” (at which point I’d make a half-inch with my thumb and pointer finger) “long.” I repeated these three words like a mantra as I wandered from my temporary apartment, looking for a barber. I’d seen several so far in Beirut, but couldn’t remember where exactly.

Turns out, there was one about two blocks away. Wins.

There were two guys sitting on a couch along the window. Like most young Lebanese, they were very fashionable. Fashion is big with young people here. For guys, it’s a very metro sexual look. (Tightish pants, usually pre-faded jeans, and collared shirts but trendy sweaters are popular.) Hair is healthily gelled, and fo-hawks abound.

Girls’ clothes always kind of confuse me. There are huge belts that don’t fit into loops and, I’m sure, play no part in holding up pants, sweaters that cover the arms but don’t go below the breasts, big, goofy looking sunglasses, and once I saw a flock of girls wearing shorts that were no bigger than undaroos with skin-tight 80s-style stretch pants (though they were in standard, not hot or neon, colors). It gets kind of sexy in Lebanon.

(Quick aside: There are lingerie stores all over my neighborhood. Sexy lingerie. And the mannequins all have carefully-formed, rock-hard nipples. Even (I’ll sound like a creep for noticing, but you can’t not) the little girl mannequins.)

I was a bit afraid of the trendy guys my age. But they spoke English. (Sort of.) The cut went well. I’m pretty sure they mocked me most of the time, but I don’t really care. There were, at points, three guys standing around me. The guy cutting my hair left to make a phone call during and at the end of the haircut. He attacked the front of my hair (bangs? The part that hangs onto my forehead) with a straight razor.

When my hair is wet, I have a heart monitor traipsing across my forehead. It looks good though. Just as I was getting ready to pay, thinking I’d had a perfectly normal experience came the “What?” moment.

“Do you want to take a shower?” the only guy left in the shop asked me. I was not prepared for that one. Had I known I would have brought a towel.

“No, thanks,” but I regret it. I should have taken the shower.