So I was in Long Island on Wednesday and I had to get a haircut. I needed to neaten up before the Holiday and I had to go to a local barber. There was a guy at the end of the street on Merrick Road so I decided to go there and get a quick haircut. I don't need to get a fancy cut. I mean I don't need a Scott Baio razor cut or a Flock of Seagulls haircut that Sixty gets. Just short all around and square in the back. You know the basic old man cut.
I walk in and there is a guy in the chair and two guys sitting in chairs. The barber a Polack named Stan goes "There are three guys ahead of you. Two here and one waiting in his car." He was a little brusque but he never met me before and he was a little harried since he was having a rush the Day before Thanksgiving. I go "No problem" and sit down and start reading my Kindle on my phone.
About ten minutes later this black dude comes in with his two kids. They are about ten or eleven years old. He goes to the barber "I want to get the kids a hair cut." "You got five people in front of you." "What I have to wait?" "Yes it is first come first serve." They turn around and walk out.
Five minutes later they come back. "I have to go somewhere. Can you put me in line and call me when the time is closer." "No it don't work that way. You have to sit and wait your turn." So they turn around and walk out.
Five minutes later they walk back in and sit down next to me. They are whispering to each other. But they are waiting like everybody else.
My time comes and I sit down and as usual I start talking to the guy and make friends. He got about five phone calls from regulars who wanted to know how many people he had. Obviously is usually not crowded at noon on a Wednesday. He kept telling them to come in and wait like everybody else. The people were just unreasonable. I told him that I work in retail and I understand what he means.
Some people just have a sense of entitlement. You can't breed it out of them.
You know what I mean?
8 comments:
Tag: Things that don't happen in Texas
Three days front Thanksgiving
Shopping.
Food
Late.
Trolly heap, bottom full
Checkout
Wait (comically eye roll)
Woman (pops up) behind
Small, Mexican, old, talk English no
Carry things not many
Invite move ahead
She refuse
Move ahead
Refuse
Move ahead
Refuse
MOVE AHEAD!
Okay. (meekly) sure?
Confuse
[Those are the English words that are analogs to ASL signs. One time a CODA told me she gets letters from her parents that do not makes sense. Until she physically signs the letter to herself and she sees what her parents are saying. Sign that to yourself and you'll see that I just showed you a precise story so tightly and so eloquently and apposite that it amazes you causing you to think, beautiful, pure poetry, concept to concept in pictures, and it forces you to ask me in sign if I am deaf. And then I'll say no. And then you'll be forced to ask me where I learned sign. Meaning by what circumstance. And I'll answer eloquently and completely, "grow up." And then you'll ask me if my parents are deaf. And I'll say, "no." You'll say "how" and I'll say, "friends." And I know this because it happens every time. And not just every regular time, but every f'k'n time. Like clockwork. And that's how I will try speaking to you. As experiment. Say, for a day.]
I don't know about breeding, but that's indoctrination.
And the word isn't entitlement, it's spoiled.
You get that way when you always get your way. The black guy better enjoy himself while he can. He's about to go all nostalgic for the Weimar Republic.
Just short all around and square in the back. You know the basic old man cut.
Out here it's called a "number 8." I think that's the setting on the clipper shears. I'm in need of a haircut but all the places in Irvine are more like salons than barber shops. I hate hair salons. I miss all the USMC barber shops in Oceanside.
My barber has a pool table to pass the time if there's a line.
The difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut: about a week........Barbers are much cheaper in Queens than in Manhattan, and the difference is imperceptible, especially if you're not good looking........The food portions in Queens restaurants are much larger. Maybe that's why people in Queens are wider than people in NYC. I thought a Mexican restaurant in Queens would be more authentic than a Mexican restaurant in NYC. It was, but not in a good way. Refried beans instead of French fries, and a huge pile of them......It's like eating Chinese food in Chinatown. Congee and bird's feet. Not an export dish. Authenticity is overrated.
I live half the year in western North Carolina. There I go to Mike's Barber shop and almost never have to wait, and I say "get it off my ears and out of my eyes." He always shaves my neck with a straight razor. There's Blue Grass on the satellite radio. He always does a good job.
The other half of the year, I live in Austin, TX. I go to a place that has "Clips" in the name. There is a sign in the window wanting barbers to hire. There are never any barbers there. The barberesses have purple or cherry-red hair and wear black blouses with little skulls on them. I don't know the name of the kind of music that's playing. They ask me if I checked in online before coming in. I tell them that I don't want them spraying my head with water and cutting my hair with scissors. They want to know what number guard to use on the clippers. No real barber has ever asked me that. They never shave my neck. Sometimes I get a good cut and sometimes not. I understand that there are real barber shops downtown by the state capital, but they cost $30-50 for a hair cut and you have to pay for parking.
The black barber I've gone to a couple times in Omaha has a wait your turn policy. Nobody argues with it that I'm aware of, maybe partly because he's a big guy but it's also a pleasant atmosphere with a little 13" TV going on a shelf to help with conversations. From the looks I got I felt like the first old white guy who ever walked into that ghetto barber shop but I was treated well.
I've noticed that some black people - men, women or kids, will try to get away with pushy behavior with white people that they wouldn't try with other blacks.
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