Part VI Free Haircuts And Nerdy Glasses

One of the most painful things about growing up me was the free haircut ordeal. My mom was a licensed beautician which meant she was the only one who would ever cut our hair since she knew how to do it. Could someone get me a bowl please? Actually my mother did not like the bowl haircut so much as she did the helmet haircut. They are both equally as dorky and really quite embarrasing to wear out in public. The two choices were decided on by my mother being the stylist that she was. I remember other kids talking about going to the barber shop and how they got candy or gum from the barber for being good while they got their haircut. I would always go along with that not wanting to tell them that I didn't get my hair pulled because I sat still while mom cut my hair. Patience and Mom did not walk hand in hand. They were more like mortal enemies. Today when I get my haircut I will not look in the mirror until they are completely finished with it. I will not even open my eyes and will barely talk to the woman cutting my hair. It was part of the routine. Sit down in the chair, shut your mouth, and when the cutting is done don't complain. I was always the difficult one. I did not like to sit still for long periods of time especially when my hair was being pulled from my head by scissors that had most recently been used to cut through glue or something. It always seemed that they stuck in my hair. The scissors were NEVER sharp. I always thought it was a way to get me to behave outside of the chair. Haircuts were a threat as far as I was concerned. The first real haircut I had outside of the house was at 16. I went and got a flat top haircut at the beginning of my Junior year of high school. I never really heard the end of that one. I didn't look good or why would I have to go to the barber shop when mom could do it for free. I am grateful though that my mother was not a dentist or a surgeon of any kind. All I had to endure was free haircuts.

My entire life and childhood was ripped from me in fourth grade. It was recommended at that time that I get my eyes tested because it seemed I might need glasses. Now in my mind I could see me wearing some really cool specs that looked less like glasses and more like golden frames around the windows of heaven. What I got was not nearly that at all. I remember having to pick from the very horrid assortment of plastic frames because my lenses were too big for the wire frames. I died and went to optical hell to find my glasses. The assortment of thick brown, gray, and black frames were not as exciting as one would imagine. The fact that my hair was cut so that my bangs were just over the top of the frames did not help either. I looked like a nerdy bmx rider with hair helmet and goggles on. I absolutely hated them. I especially hated the first day of school with them on, and a lot of subsequent days for that matter. The insults got to me at first but my humor allowed me to deflect them enough that I did not cry about it. My fighting days were all over now. I was going to have to find a way to defend myself without having to throw a punch and get those huge goggles knocked off my face. I have been told over the years that I am a humorous man and I have to think back to the origins and be grateful for those huge, heavy and unattractive glasses that allowed me to develop that as a self defense mechanism. I remember sports were more difficult to play while pushing my glasses up a million times. I did get very irritated a few times and would throw them. They were virtually indestructible the bastards. One time and one time only I threw them on the ground and stomped them until they broke. I lied and said they fell off and I stepped on them, but the lie really kept me from doing it again and made me control my temper a little bit as far as those stupid glasses were concerned. I had know become an angry NERD. The glasses may have been the single most warping factor in my life and as I write today looking through another pair of glasses which I don't like so much I think about those childhood days.