Terrible Cuts. Val Checks In, But She Can't Check Out

I hate to get a haircut. Don't you hate to get a haircut? I know The Pony hates to get a haircut, but I attribute that to his formative years, when Hick used to give the boys a buzz cut every summer vacation, and accidentally nicked The Pony's ear. Sure, it was just a flesh wound. But you know how blood spurts from any little opening when it's above the neck.

Anyhoo...I went to Terrible Cuts today. Gotta look presentable for the upcoming Casinopalooza with Sis and the ex-mayor. Because I have techy kids, they made me get that Terrible Cuts app for my phone, where you can check in ahead of time, and be the next one called when you show up. I don't really think that's fair, but if I'M the one getting bumped ahead, and not the one being overlooked, then I guess it's fair enough for me.

I didn't want to check in too soon. It takes me 15 minutes to get there from home. I had to go by the main post office hub first. So as I left there, I checked in. Huh. Wait is 12 minutes. That's unusual. It usually shows a five minute wait, or less. Unless you're stupid enough to go on a Friday afternoon before Easter, or Christmas, when kids are out of school and looking all raggedy around the ears, and moms take the whole pack at the same time. This was a Tuesday morning, by cracky, at 10:45. Not even lunch time for the terrible cutters.

Oh, well. I was about 5 minutes away, and I decided to make a stop to pick up a lottery ticket. That ate up a little time. In fact, after I backed T-Hoe into the parking space at Terrible Cuts (you'd be proud of me, Pony, because I didn't hit their chain-link fence this time and bend it so you could point it out for months, every time we drove by), my phone app said my wait was 1 minute. Sweet!

I put my purse and lottery ticket out of sight, and went up the parking lot to the door. It opened before I could reach out my hand. A young woman held it for me. Okay. Not so much for ME as for her two almost-school-age boys. They were baffled. The didn't want to come out and walk ahead of their mom. She was going to hold that door for me to go in. We were kind of at a Mexican Standoff. Finally, one of those boys made a run for it, which caused the other one to follow, which cleared the doorway, so I could go in.

Wouldn't you know it? The minute I stepped inside, a new little terrible cutter was calling an old man over to her station. Had I not been cut-blocked by those kids, I'd have been right there. My name was clearly the only one on their computer screen as a check-in. They even asked me if I'd checked in. Yep. For all the good it did me.

I walked down the row of waiting chairs. There were 9 along the front window, and 3 made a left to make an L shape at the side window. I walked down to chair 8 and started to sit down. Well! An old lady ran back from where she'd walked with the old man to tell the terrible cutter how she wanted his hair done. She snatched up a jacket from the side chairs. She seemed kind of agitated, so I turned and went back towards the door, and sat down in chair 2. I'll be ding-dang-donged if that old lady didn't follow me and sit down in chair 5. Way to go, lady, taking up the whole waiting area. She put her coat on chair 3, her purse on chair 4, and what I assume was her husband's coat on chair 6. It wasn't even cold enough for a coat this morning!

The terrible cutter asked that old lady a question about her husband's head, and she got up to go look, and when she came back, I'll be ding-dang-donged if she wasn't COUGHING! Oh, but that's not all. She STOPPED a few feet from the chairs, angled toward me like she was a clock hand pointing at the 1, and coughed there. IN MY DIRECTION! I was not happy. Well. That's a given. Let's just say I was more not-happy than I usually am.

THEN those two terrible cutters were in the midst of a Public Employee Standoff. Each trying to work slower than the other, in order to take fewer customers. The one I usually get, the gossiper, was working on a lady with short spiky bleached hair in a man-cut. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But this terrible cutter was milking it. I swear. There was less hair on the floor than it would take to half-fill the belly-button of a toddler. She was not cutting at all. Just pulling up tufts of hair, and making her scissors snip. They were chatting away about Goldie's workplace and job. TC spent a few more minutes combing Goldie's buzz cut. Like the other boys told Vern in Stand By Me, upon discovering that he had brought a comb on the trek to find Ray Brower, "You don't even have any hair!"

Yeah. I'd say that app was pretty accurate. My wait was about 12 minutes. AFTER I arrived at the time the original 12 minutes had elapsed.

I hate to get a haircut.