If you’re like me, you’re on the fence about whether you want some asshole with scissors breathing god knows what all over your face while you sit in an unfamiliar chair that anybody’s COVID-y ass sweat could’ve seeped into, and you realize that barber shops operate on such a tight margin that you’re not sure you trust them to do all the disinfecting the world’s only not-completely-shitty Republican governor insists they do. But while you struggle to get over your own justifiable concerns, your hair just keeps getting longer, and longer, and longer, regardless of how often you stare at it in the mirror and yell at it to use all that energy to have some little hair children in that bald spot that’s taking over your scalp like the Sahara’s eating Africa.
Fine, maybe you’re not exactly like me, but I know you wish you were and that you’re probably having similar issues convincing yourself a trip to the stylist is a good idea. Just what am I to do with my increasingly out of control coif?
Option Number 1: Cut the shit and go to the barber. Supposedly this is safe? The story that two asymptomatic hair stylists served 45 people and none of them tested positive hits Reddit every couple days. The numbers in Massachusetts are so low right now that the chances of catching it while sitting close to just one other person in a regularly disinfected chair are probably pretty slim, but those potential long term effects of catching the disease are fucking frightening and I’d rather not have to spend a chunk of the summer in isolation or the hospital before the inevitable return to lockdown in the fall.
Option Number 2: Cut it at home by myself. Age and genetics are doing their damnedest to convince me it’s time to Bic it all off anyway. It could be a whole new me for a whole new world! Then again, this requires regular maintenance and I’m a lazy shit. I have enough trouble remembering to wear sunblock as is and don’t need to increase my vulnerable surface area. And there’s a pretty good chance going full chrome dome will make me look like I’m three child support payments behind.
Those of you who are thinking “But Scott Colby, you don’t have to shave it all off! Just get some clippers and trim it!” obviously have never watched me try to do things.
Option Number 3: Embrace it. Because who the fuck do I have to impress right now? It’s safer to keep strangers the fuck away from my head and I really shouldn’t be trusted to operate any machinery up there. Maybe I can braid beads or seashells into it, or twist it into a man bun to complete my new “Somerville bike dude on his way to smoke peyote in his hippie uncle’s backyard sweat lodge” look.
And then there’s Halloween, which I believe will happen in some form or fashion even if it’s just online. Long hair opens up a world of costume possibilities, such as…
Sometimes a bowler just has to face the music.
Scott Land 