PyschoBilly

Another birthday, another year come and gone. Everything goes too fast for me now. Should I be smoking pot?

Having procrastinated for long enough, I got a hair color and cut today. As I sat waiting for the brown color to seep into my salt and pepper roots, a young guy about twenty hopped into the chair next to me and asked George, the hair dresser for a psychobilly cut. "What??? said George. "You knows, like blahblah blah (I couldn't hear the name) - you know, like the music!" said the kid. George shrugging his shoulders asked the kid to describe the cut: shaved at the sides, feathery at the rear, slicked back from the face with a kind of pompadour (but not too much pompadour) at the front. The kid had a beautiful head of hair with black soft curls hanging a little below his ears. In my opinion, it was perfect as it was. 

George, on the exterior, does not look like a hip kind of guy. While the kid was describing the cut, George, rolling his eyes, was reciting all the AKA's this hair cut has sported over the years, starting with the "Elvis Presley". As he prepared to cut, he prowled around the kid like a lion assessing his prey. He looked from this angle, then another angle. Finally he picked up his scissors, did a few preliminary snips, to warm up I guess, and began cutting. The black locks piled up on the floor and the kid's classic profile began to show. Then the shaving started. George was judicious - a bit here, a bit there. Finally he did the slick-back of the pompadour and the kid started smiling. George had nailed it. I can't say I liked the style but the kid looked more eye-catching when he left. It's the kind of hair cut you notice.

While I'd been watching, the salon had filled. George's fellow stylist was working fast, tattoos flashing on the lower part of her arms and on her back; something floral, navy blue and green was curling around her neck. Bright and bubbly, she too was shaving and snipping at another twenty year old. The people waiting were all young.

I tried to focus on the greasy, tattered People magazine in my lap but I felt like a dinosaur at a grey hound race.  

Eventually a timer dinged somewhere and the spell was broken. My greyish hair had turned brown and George gave me the standard little old lady bob/cut. Fast on his feet he managed to switch back three generations of hair styling from psychobilly to little-old-lady in one smooth swivel.

Next time I'm signing up for a couple of red streaks at the front to fight back the dowdiness.