Hair Cuts

Yesterday George finally got the guts to get his haircut in Turkey. He's been whinging (British English: to complain) for weeks about his unruly mop. He asked Sondra and I to accompany him. We said yes, of course. He didn't want to go alone. I wouldn't want to go alone either. We prepared for the excursion by sifting through my dictionary and finding some useful words: "a hair cut; three centimeters; thick hair; to make sparse." George wrote them on a scrap of paper and stuffed them in his pocket.

The three of us piled into the lift and slowly descended to the street level. We walked out the door in the lobby and turned left immediately to the barber shop that is right next to our apartment entrance. George insisted on going here because it's good for "community relations." George did most of the talking (which really just consisted of showing the barber the scrap of paper with Turkish) but Sondra and I provided moral support. The barber shop was otherwise empty, and our arrival displaced the barber's friend from his seat behind the hair cutting chairs. Sondra and I were offered the chairs and the friend stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching traffic pass. Women don't hang out in barber shops, we guessed, and soon enough we knew why.

The Turkish barber shop is a bastion of male secrets. After an immaculate hair cut, George's barber wadded cotton on the tips of his scissors, doused the cotton in some purple goo, took out his BIC lighter and ignited the mighty swab, and--before anyone realized what was happening--singed the Offensive Man Hair off George's ears. Sondra was better at hiding her amusement but I was dissolving in laughter. The hilarity increased when the barber required George to lean back against a pillow that had popped up from the back of the chair, so that he could trim his nostril hair. Nope, not done yet. The eyebrows had yet to be given a quick clip.

After the barber had shampooed George's entire head (and face) as he sat hunched forward over a sink basin, his hair was towel-blotted and blow-dried into a puff that looked like a baby bird. Then came the L'Oreal styling creme, and finally an application of standard Turkish lemon-scented cologne. The barber charged 10YTL (which is a miserable $6.6 at the current exchange rate) for about 45 minutes of tender loving care.

I just hope that women's salons don't singe your ear hair off... I might put off a hair cut for even longer than I'd originally planned.