6/26/2011

Knave and a Haircut

Don't forget: ABCotD is still in road trip mode! We'll be back to our regular posting schedule in late June/early July. Thanks for reading!

Story Sent in by Delia:

Corey asked me out to an early dinner for a Saturday afternoon.  I agreed to drive into town to meet him.  Once there, he found me, waiting for him where we had agreed to meet.  He asked, "Will you follow me?  I have a quick thing to do."  I didn't see a problem with it.  Perhaps something unexpected had come up.  I climbed into my car, he jumped into his, and I followed him through the city streets.

After a 15-minute drive, we parked on a side street in a neighborhood of shuttered storefronts and ill-maintained, closely-built brownstones.  We parked and stepped out of our cars.  "Here we are," he said.

"Where is 'here'?" I asked.

He didn't answer, but walked down the sidewalk.  I followed behind him, although I was on my guard in case anything turned uncomfortably weird.  He led me about half a block down to, no joke, the only place on the block that was open: a barbershop, barely distinguishable from the dilapidation around it.  Its sign was painted, white on brick, and had faded through the years.  He walked in, and I followed.

"Hey guys!" he said, walking into the filthy shop.  There were two barber's chairs within, one of which rusted against the back wall.  There was one barber, and two other guys sitting inside.  They all scowled at Corey and I when we walked in.  Corey plopped himself in the barber's chair and said, "Your finest haircut, my good man!"

The barber glanced at me.  I sat down in the only available waiting chair, next to the two other guys, who I took it were just friends of the barber.  It wasn't as though Corey had taken their place in line, at least.

The barber started his work on Corey.  Corey didn't make the job too easy for him, as Corey hummed a rock song to himself and bobbed his head all the while.  The barber didn't complain, but the fellow I sat next to turned to me at one point and said, "You're very pretty."

"Thank you," I mumbled, and shifted my chair a bit further away.

Corey asked the barber, "Is it true that you don't need past a third-grade education to be a barber?  And if so, what do they teach you about hair-cutting in third grade that you don't learn in second grade?"

After he asked that, the barber stopped cutting Corey's hair and stared at him for about a solid minute.  No one in the shop said a word, and aside from the Johnny Cash playing over the radio, there wasn't another sound.  Corey himself kept bobbing to his rock song.  The barber went back to cutting.

Finally, the haircut was over, and Corey checked it out in the mirror.  He thanked the barber, then pointed at me.  "You want one?  My treat."

"No, thank you."

Corey handed the barber a wad of bills.  The barber peeled them apart, then said to Corey, "This is ten.  Haircut's fourteen."

Corey said, "Uh…" then ran out of the shop.

"Hey!  Hey!" the barber yelled, and he tore off, after Corey.  His two friends followed behind.  I was the only one left in the shop, and I was more than a bit bewildered.  After debating what to do for several moments, I left the shop, walked back to my car, and drove away.  I saw nothing of Corey, the barber, or the barber's companions.

More than a month later, a text arrived from Corey: "Where'd you go???"

16 comments:

  1. My only question is, why didn't the barber fuck up his haircut after that insult?

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  2. The only thing I can say about this entire date is just, why? just why, to everything that happend.

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  3. Because these are the ridiculous kind and gullible people who submit their odd stories to this site.
    OP, I missed you and your ilk. The only thing that would have made it better, is if she had paid for the rest of the haircut and then gone out with him a month later

    Thank you OP, for restoring my faith in this site, just like all those other people who called the cops, and kicked would-be rapists out of their house, restored my faith in humanity

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  4. Well one thing is for sure: there exist a metric shit-ton of whackos out there.

    No, wait.

    No, yeah, the first thing.

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  5. Way to impress a girl with your street cred, Cory. The barber was a professional through & through and I hope he kicked Cory's butt professional-like for the insult and the money.

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  6. Does anyone else think $14 sounds a little steep for a men's haircut in a shitty neighborhood?

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  7. ahahahahahaha!! I'm with aaf here. Too many people standing up for themselves lately, not enough people just going with it. Thanks, Delia, for a truly funny, weird date. <3

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  8. @bodhi

    I can't get a haircut for less than $18.

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  9. Guys are so lucky. If I want a decent haircut, I have to pay upwards of $30 at a salon, and that's at a fairly cheap place. I have SHORT HAIR too, but they always treat it as a "woman's haircut." Meanwhile, Scientist Fiance has old school Bieber-length hair (not in the same style, thank God), and gets to pay for a men's cut. Sexist bullshit. /rant

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  10. "Rebuttle" is a sexy rebuttal from Howie. Either way the B-U-T-T is there...

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  11. $14 is about what I pay for a hair cut too and I don't have to go to a shady neighborhood either. I suspect that if you went to a barber shop instead of a salon, Nikki, you might pay less though you might also get a different style of cut.

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  12. @ Howie: I'm pretty sure sex is a typically a 50-50 split of the work, unless, you know, it's rape or more than two people are involved.

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  13. * is typically

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  14. Ipdar, I never considered going to a barber shop. I always thought that they negatively judged women who went there. :-/

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  15. Howie, so you pay prostitutes just so that YOU only do all the work in bed? lol

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  16. Story #101 where they agree to meet for a meal, last minute phone call and guy says "follow me" to another destination and girl agrees. Jeez. After that, slight variations on the same theme. Yawn. Another common one: We agree to meet and I wait 10 mins and call, says they'll be right here. I wait another 20 mins, call, says they'll be right here. I wait five mins, call, says they'll be right here. Insert various themes for the lateness. I have never had any of this happen. How does it happen, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

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