Online reservations came and broke your heart.
For six months of 2020, give or take a few on each end, people could let their hair grow down due to the pandemic of it all. When normalcy – relatively speaking – started to rear its head back into the fold, however, they returned to their trusted local barbers to find waiting times the likes of which they had never encountered before.
Two years later, mask requirements have been mostly done away with on the barbershop front. Yet, someone as stream-of-consciously impulsive as this entertainment journalist can’t get his famously on-brand “heat of the moment” skin fade he does every time more Peaky Blinders episodes are unleashed without it becoming an all-day event. It’s a lengthy process because of the search, and the disarmful blowback from an inner circle who’ll say “this ain’t it,” or “don’t fight it, just go with the times.”
Uh, yeah; as if.
Trial and error brought me to four haircut hubs across a half hour’s worth of local services from Smithtown to Selden before the fifth time was the charm. As a matter of fact, it rained the whole way there, with the clouds parting the second the destination was reached– down coming a no-longer fading day’s dream of sunshine delight to tune the torrential threats out. [And yet my men’s league ballgame was still cancelled that night, but I digress.]
If “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” by Talking Heads weren’t already playing on my Spotify shuffle upon arrival , the lyrics surely would have entered my mind at first sight of this site’s shallow sea of availability. It was a visit so under-the-wire opportune, in terms of what it personally provided me Tuesday before last, that I won’t risk drawing attention beyond welcomed extra business to their establishment by name-dropping them in this half-humor column, half-declaration of love.
Ultimately, having a roving barber on standby taylormade for walk-ins in a market seemingly buoyed by the virtual appointment booking takeover proved my Achilles’ saving grace on this day. Yupping it up with my new stylist then brought the psychology behind my headly presentation trends to the surface.
Basically, if I spot so much as a sliver of side “puffiness” in the rear-view mirror while stuck in bumper-to-bumper, I temporarily foreclose on all Taylor Swift cruel summer jam sampling. All The Smiths karaoke training. All “Pardon My Take” and “Conan Needs a Friend” podcasting goodness. Because something much more important has arisen at this precise moment; the unshakeable, like clockwork sensation that I need to get a haircut within the next 20 minutes–otherwise, it’s not happening for three months.
Even still, with the Tuesday following the Fourth of July becoming a Monday for my Ronkonkoma-based office, my shift ended at 4 that afternoon, so I had a bit more time to kill – thereby commencing my mission to chop off all excess in time for our local newspaper company’s Wednesday “Crunch Day.” The objective: to secure one before closing, which is typically anywhere from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. for the 6-to-7-deep queue Online reservations came and broke your heart. For six months of 2020, give or take a few on each end, people could let their hair grow down due to the pandemic of it all. When normalcy – relatively speaking – started to rear its head back into the fold, however, they returned to their trusted local barbers to find waiting times the likes of which they had never encountered before. Two years later, mask requirements have been mostly done away with on the barbershop front. Yet, someone as stream-of-consciously impulsive as this entertainment journalist can’t get of barbershops qualified to bear the wrath of my expedited pursuance.
Where I ultimately settled upon came through for me in the past prior, with big tip-earning cuts ahead of interviews for jobs where I looked sharp, yet didn’t get the gig because I was deemed “overqualified,” whatever that means. But, again, when you’re a spontaneous haircut go-getter with mild O.C.D., you have no time whatsoever to pull over and call in an inquiry or safari-surf past hotspot lags until the “res” wave is ridden. So, instead, you hightail it – in accordance with the LIE, Smithtown Bypass and Middle Country Road speed limits, of course – until you’re making the rounds all up and down Rejection Avenue.
Walk in, read the room, view a board confirming a “51-minute” wait, and you realize- OK, this was on you, after all, even though it really shouldn’t be. At location attempt No. 2, similar projections, coupled with the lack of an immediate interaction from anyone under the joint’s employ despite the jingle-jangle of entryway chimes indicating your presence, has you saying, “yup, onto the next next one.”
Then, a pair of “no walk-in’s” were stumbled into. They’re not taking any non-“checked-in” trim-desiring customers “but can book you an appointment for tomorrow;” even though, at quick glance, it looks like they do have the manpower and seats to spare. Some people just don’t take too kindly to those whose book they judge as too defiantly out-of-touch for their tastes, I guess. But, get to know me and you’ll know- I couldn’t be more thrilled, more grateful to find someone willing to meet me halfway.
I will go back to the place that now knows my name. And my return will be complete with the sincerest of grins and a wallet brought in that’s not paper-thin this time, shout-out to them for also taking Venmo. What a wonderful world.
The last thing I need, when all I’d really like is a long overdue buzz to empty both the mind and its peripheral coverage: naysayers who jump at the chance to curb my ultra-occasional lack of enthusiasm. Especially when they try and convince me to believe in fallacious lunacies, like there being no such thing as spontaneous haircuts anymore.
Allow me to offer this winding down reflection of one fine Tuesday in July – and perhaps a selfie? – as proof-positive evidence there very much is. You just have to buckle up, buckle down and seek them out, at first. Then, during every successive visit to [insert your go-to’s here], you’ll have another sweetly appreciated constant in a lifetime’s worth of unpredictables at your regular leisure.
For me, at least, this much is wholeheartedly true. ‘Till next time—that is the Message. Don’t Kill The Messenger.
