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The other day, I had lunch with Joel (my brother, not my client) and he wanted to go to Panda Express, the nearest of which happened to be at the food court in Valley Fair—a local mall. After eating, we walked near a hair-cutting establishment—MasterCuts—and I stepped in to ask how long their wait was. Upon being told there was none, I decided to have my hair cut.
MasterCuts is not a fancy salon, but you don't need an appointment to go there and their price for a normal haircut seems reasonable. I have been there a couple times before and received decent haircuts, but this time, I was not so lucky.
The person who cut my hair was an older woman whose English was so poor that I suspected she understood me no better than I could understand her, which was barely at all. She started with electric clippers, which I found strange and concerning—no less so when she began her attack on my head like an angry Darth Vader shearing a sheep with wild strokes of his lightsaber.
Things did not improve. I have never seen someone use electric clippers for so long on one head nor with such uneven results. I do not mind haircuts involving such clippers for certain tasks, but for this woman, they were her primary tools and she wielded them with all of the expertise of a first-day fencing student.
I paid with a twenty dollar bill and let the woman keep the change not because I thought she did a good job, but out of habit and I soon regretted leaving anything extra because she likely interpreted the habitual tip as a true gratuity—a compliment about her terrible work. Joel and I had taken only a few steps away from MasterCuts when I told him I did not actually like my haircut.
Today, my hair looks even worse than it did on Friday, when the gel applied by my hair assailant partially hid the uneven results of her work. If hair could be jealous, my hair would be jealous of grass, which looks better groomed after a faster cut with a lawnmower.
