What is it about hair stylists? There is this unwritten rule, at least to me, that while getting your hair cut, or done, if you prefer, conversation must take place between yourself and the person working the mop on top of your head. Naturally, silence would be uncomfortable, so in its essence, this all makes complete sense. However, it is the nature of the conversation that always gets me. It doesn’t annoy me, but I seriously have to choke back laughter.
You sit down in the chair, they drape the anti-hair-falling-down-your-collar device, or devices, depending on the type of place you go to, ask you about how you want your hair, and off you go. Depending on the person cutting my hair, they grab their scissors or clippers, stare at the state of my head in the mirror, and begin. Every time, without failure, there is the key moment.
“So…”
Do I live in town? What do I do? What did I study? What do you do for fun? Wow, do you talk on the air at all? Where do you work? So that’s, like, technical and stuff, right? Where are you from originally? What type of music do you listen to? Oh, do you know so and so?
Do they teach this to them in cosmetology school? A specific class on how to initiate painful conversation. I bet I could be a professor and teach such a thing. Seriously, ask me about my job some time and I’ll have fun watching your eyes glaze over.