I recently decided to celebrate the easing of lockdown by treating myself to a haircut. Going to the barbers for me has always been a treat. I'm a sucker for a bit of pampering and, in the days of life as a journalist in that London, myself and a friend would often venture to what I thought was quite a flash hairdressers run by a posse of almost identical and amazingly beautiful Hungarian women.
In retrospect, I now suspect it may have been part of a people smuggling operation. The haircuts and the level of pampering on offer was, however, a joy and worth any potential moral compromise.
Fast-forward a decade and I now have a new favourite barbers in Guildford. This is run by men. Proper men. With tattoos and muscles and opinions about sports. I generally go in and explain that I have no idea what I want doing as I don't know the terminology. But I'll give them a rough description and they'll tell me it in Barberage, which is the language of all male hairdressers. Then we'll swap pleasantries about football, which I studiously learn from the telly the night before, they'll get to work and I'll relax.
A strange thing happened the last time in, though. He was doing his thing and I was explaining why I thought Carlton Palmer was a massively under-rated defensive midfielder, and he started trimming my actual ears with an electric razor.
He didn't ask. He just went straight in. I am quite fastidious about ear and nasal hair. But I couldn't remember if I'd done it recently. He obviously thought I hadn't and he piled in. He probably assumed I was some old bloke who just didn't care any more. He was being kind. A bit like leaving a pile of paper towels nearby to help the drunk in the pub who's fallen asleep and pissed himself when he wakes up.
So I am now clearly the sort of man who needs additional help to remove his unsightly ear hair. It could be my lowest moment. If I hadn't had many more. Male grooming is a jungle.
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