Inappropriate Barber Banter

I think as a barber you have two jobs: to cut hair and to offer a bit of friendly banter while you’re at it.

 

So when I came to the barber today, and a younger chap came to cut my hair, I was expecting a bit of both. And I’m not impolite enough to ignore him when he speaks, I’ll gladly pull my weight conversation-wise too.

 

The chap is definitely not an old-school white-coated scissorman. He’s got a head like a porcupine – spikes everywhere, but keep that wax away from any heat – and arms covered in tattoos.

 

He points me in the direction of a chair and I sit down there. But before I know if he’s nicked off to chat to his mate. He ambles back and we get down to business.

 

He starts quietly. In the background the proprietor is talking about the hooligans in Freo, and the amount of litter left out in North Freo, including a broken shopping trolley. He’s got photos on his mobile, which he shows to his customer. For the record, I consider this to be too deep an involvement conversationally for the customer. This crosses the boundary from banter to venting one’s spleen and belongs on talkback radio where no one important has to hear it.

 

Anyways, my spiky friend (I have to call him that as he’s armed with scissors), starts cutting my hair and vaguely starts borrowing the conversation we can both hear, and talks about the deros and druggies in Freo, and how there are too many drunks there. He’s very uncommitted to the conversation because, I suspect, he is not sure whether I’m an older, more conservative bloke who doesn’t go out (not bloody likely) or if I’m young like him (which is correct, only I’m way cooler). Either way I’m likely to have a strong opinion about his plagiarised topic of conversation. But I dead-bat his comments, making the right noises but nothing more.

 

After about two minutes he says to me “sorry mate, just gotta make a call.”

 

A bit unusual mid-cut but I sat there, hair half cut, hoping he’d remember to return. Somewhat surprisingly, the call was personal – to his sheila, returning her call. He got the message bank, and after he left a message he started talking to me again. “’Call me back when you’ve finished’ she said. ‘Call me back when you’ve finished.’ And now I call her back and she doesn’t bloody pick up.”

 

I looked up and him, with my hair half-cut. Clearly he hadn’t finished.

 

Not to be outdone, he started talking about his sheila, and that they’re about to have scans and tests for their first baby. Still unsure of which side of the Freo-hooligan watershed I fell on, he meekly asked if I had kids.

 

“No mate. Not that I know of.”

 

Its an old joke, and one I’ve made very often. Took him a while to get it though.

 

I wished he hadn’t.

 

He started talking about his brother. “He’s probably got a few he doesn’t know about. Man he’s stupid.”

 

I was dumbfounded. He continued.

 

“Yeah, my brother was with this girl, and you know they were going for it and she said ‘yeah, yeah this is all good, just don’t come inside me’ and he said ‘no worries’ but what does he do? Comes in side of her”

 

This, I’m sure you’ll agree, went beyond banter (or venting spleen, or any form of polite conversation).

 

Mercifully, his phone rang again. It was his sheila. They organised to have lunch together in a couple of minutes. Thankfully, it didn’t even take that long to finish my hair. I was out of there like a flash.

 

Barbers and hairdressers can I guess get derided for the lack of qualifications necessary for their profession, but after this it’s safe to say you can tell the difference between a good one and a bad one, certainly in terms of the banter they employ with their fare.