Green Monsters

Aside from my current career in the food business, many of you may not know that I also moonlight as a Barber. The job is not to be taken lightly as it requires a fine attention to detail and precision, something I have no place in assuming much skill. However, I’ve had some practice in this area with recipe development and I figure it’s always wise to develop a new skill set for the resume.

Every month, Eric calls me into the bathroom where I find him stripped down to his boxers with his Deluxe hair trimming set splayed about, clutching the large electric trimmer in one hand. This is when I transform into Barber Extraordinaire cutting his hair while catching up on the day’s gossip just like any good stylist would.

The most difficult aspect of this task is by far the point at which I have to trim the base of his hairline and make a very, very, very straight line. The first time I did it, I felt like I was trying to pipe a gingerbread cookie, my hands shaky and my pulse escalating. But now that I’ve been cutting his hair for over 10 years, I swear I could do it in my sleep. It’s really fool proof!!

"Looks good to me", I say with a nod then disappear from the room.

Except this time Eric returned home from work with some rather upsetting news.

"Pete had a good laugh today."

"Oh yea?"

"We were out for lunch and Pete gave a couple glances at the back of my hair. He said ‘Man, who cut your hair…Did you cut it yourself?’”

“I said ‘No, Ange did.’”

That’s when I piped in, “He loved it, right?”

“Then Pete said ‘Did you look at it? Man, you better go take a look at the back of your hair in the mirror. It’s so crooked it looks like a ski slope.’”

I took one look at Eric’s hair and it looked like a 2 year old set loose on it. Pete was right, I botched that cut almost worse than the time I cut off my best friends beautiful long hair as a 5 year old.

“Oh my Goooood. How did I…”

I burst out laughing and could not stop. Tears came, from laughing so hard.

“You’re fired.”

I tell you, the first day back at the job (he was desperate), was rather anxiety-provoking. I trimmed that hair so straight you could’ve put a laser level on it and it would pass with flying colours. So far, no more comments from Pete, but I might have a few choice words for him next time he’s over.