Bleeding Ear

"The blood ran down the back of his ear, trickling onto the sheet that covered his shoulders. 'It's cold,' he thought. The florescent lighting highlighted the shiny red excretion and yet still no one noticed. He waited. Was she coming back? Was she dead? How could he be sure? All he could think about was the sting that clung ferociously to the side of his head, sending stabbing reminders of what had just happened...and what was owed him."

The preceding narration is a an accurate depiction of which of the following?

a) That time in High School when I had to go to the hospital after injuring myself while making the game-winning touchdown.

b) That time I gave blood and they missed my arm and hit my head.

c) How my last relationship before my wife ended.

d) My last haircut.


Have you chosen?

Ready for the answer?

Okay, here we go. If you answered d) then you're in the winner's circle. If you answered a) then you are either new to this blog (in which case, welcome) or you have not been paying very close attention. If you answered b) then I think you have issues. I don't think b) is even possible. Maybe you want it to be. If you answered c) then you're wrong but you're in luck. c) is the topic of a future blog I'm already working on. (It's taking some time to do that one because I have to prepare myself for the inevitable embarrassment.)

As of this writing, I'm 6 days out from that last haircut and I can still feel the wound. Oh, how she wounded me.

After my last hair stylist quit and decided to go upscale, I have been on a constant hunt for a new place to get my once-every-6-weeks haircut. I've tried North Fresno. (Rich part of town.) I've tried Clovis. (East of Fresno and home of the casual hick, i.e. hicks that shop at old navy.) I thought, "Well, why not try South Fresno?" (Home of everyone scary and of ill repute, i.e. the poor. Ooh, it's a scary poor person! Quick, shuffle away and don't make eye contact!)

"I work in South Fresno and there is a chain salon on the way home from work, it's perfect."

And that may be the only time that anyone, anywhere referred to 'Supercuts' as 'perfect.'

I'm not one to believe in fate but I truly think it was my destiny to bleed that day. I signed my name at the bottom of a very long list of people waiting for a haircut, sat down, and waited. After her heavy sigh and a swig of her water bottle, the hairstylist finally worked up enough courage to start reading off the names. 1...2...5...9 names read and no response. Was there a mass exodus from the shop that I missed out on? I should have recognized it for the omen that it was. Instead, I sat patiently, wrongly praying that she'd get all the way down to my name with everyone on the list safely in the alternate universe they had clearly disappeared to.

12 names later I hear, "Brad?"

Close enough.

I sat down in the chair and the plastic sheet was wrapped around me. (I neglected to think about how much warmth a plastic sheet might provide on a cold night, but as I type this the thought does occur to me. Probably not very much.) My hairstylist was hispanic. I once knew a hispanic girl named Juana and I've always liked the name. Since I couldn't be bothered to check her name tag, we will call my hairstylist Juana. I doled out my orders:

"I just want a number two, high fade. Short, but not too short on top."

"How do you style it?" Juana asks.

"Oh, I don't know. Just whatever." Obviously, I am partly responsible for the tragedy that follows.

Juana broke out the razor and a twinge of terror gripped me. Razors are not my friends. She started over by right ear and did a good job of getting my salt and pepper goodness onto the floor. (That's right, I'm going gray. What of it?) It was when she approached the backside of my right ear that I felt it. She had just barely nicked me and I managed to not flinch. I was pretty sure she didn't break the skin so I didn't say anything.

Juana moved around my head with little incident until she reached my left ear. She dug the razor right in there and I felt it. Oh, how I felt it. I quickly jerked my to the side in a fashion not seen since the anatomically incorrect move Han Solo pulls on Greedo in the Special Edition of Star Wars. (I'm sorry, Star Wars is just on the brain I guess.)

"Are you alright?" Juana's concern was touching.

"No, I'm fine. I think you hit me."

"I hit you?"

"Yeah. With the razor? I think you hit me with the razor."

"The razor? I hit you with the razor?"

"Yeah, y'know, I think you cut me? I'm pretty sure I'm bleeding."

"Really."

It's then that I realized I was having one of the stupidest conversations of my life. Just look at my ear, lady! She finally did and she gasped in horror. I couldn't see it, but I could kind of feel what had happened pretty well. I felt a long sting down the back of my ear and that cold feeling? Yeah, that was my blood.

"I'm sorry. I feel so evil now."

Did she intend to cut me? I decided to let her odd comment slide. "It's okay, this has happened before."

Okay, confession time: I have strange, possibly vulcan ears. They come to more of a point on top than the nice roundness you humans are so blessed with. Also, they're hard as rocks. I was once told they have extra cartilage, which is what makes them so inflexible. This is generally only a problem on two occasions:

1) At night, if I sleep on one side of my head too long my ear starts to hurt and I have to change sides.

2) When I get a haircut.

The first time it happened was while I was living in Arizona. There was a stylist I would frequent and 9 times out of 10, I'd leave her shop with a band-aid on my ear. I know what you're thinking, "Why did you go back?" Two words: free haircuts. I was a missionary at the time and she was a member of the church so...

Arizona lady may have been the first, but she was not the last. I have a natural, justified fear of razors.

Juana oohed and aahed over my cut ear for a bit more and then went to the back room to grab a band-aid. Meanwhile, I was sitting there bleeding profusely from the ear (That's right, I'm a bleeder.) and wondering what this must look like to the other patrons. It can't be good for business to have a man sitting in one of your chairs, bleeding. I could just imagine a little kid walking in, pointing and screaming, "Mommy! I don't want to get my hair cut! I don't want to!"

Clearly, Juana did not share my fears. I sat in that chair, alone, for an uncomfortably long time. When she finally came back she was extremely apologetic. I thought, "Yes, a free haircut!"

As she cut my hair, I found myself in the strange position of reassuring HER. She felt really bad and I tried to let her know it was okay, it was what I expected when I get my hair cut. We made jokes, we laughed. Had there been homeless people there, we might have served them meals together.

I guess Juana really thought everything was okay because she charged me the full amount. It would have been nice to get the haircut for free or even at a discount, but I was okay with paying. Sure, I was bleeding, but I bleed a lot when I get my hair cut. It was par for the course and I blamed my parents and their freaky genes more than I blamed Juana. I even tipped her to make sure she knew everything was okay.

Because, in spite of everything, she gave me a really great haircut. At a 'Supercuts.'