With such pampering, I'll also shave my hair
Staff of Asbury Barber Shop in Kinoo, Kiambu County, attend to clients. PHOTO | COURTESY
What you need to know:
He said he wanted to get a haircut. But he looked exhausted, dog-tired with red eyes that could only be the product of weariness.
If I were him, I pointed out, I would take a nap, not go out for a haircut. He went out for the hair cut anyway.
An hour or so later, he returned. Standing before me was a new man, a man reborn, it was as if he had just woken up.
He looked like he could effortlessly run a marathon or two.
I know it would be bad manners if I do not explain where I have been the last couple of months, but I will risk being accused of lacking refinement and so I'll simply dive into my story this week.
But not before I thank my colleague, Elvis Ondieki, for standing in for me.
I am contemplating shaving off my hair, and no, it has nothing to do with the fact that it is now fashionable for a woman to sport short hair. It all started a month ago.
It was a Saturday evening and we had barely sat down after an especially gruelling day that included attending an early morning meeting and then running multiple errands.
“I’m going out to get a haircut,” he announced.
He looked exhausted, dog-tired with red eyes that could only be the product of weariness. If I were him, I pointed out, I would take a nap, not go out for a haircut. He went out for the hair cut anyway.
An hour or so later, he returned. Standing before me was a new man, a man reborn, it was as if he had just woken up.
He looked like he could effortlessly run a marathon or two. And the weariness in the eyes was gone, replaced by an alertness that can only be achieved by sleeping the eight hours that doctors recommend. Magic right there.
BARBERSHOP MYSTERY
Keen to solve this barbershop mystery where men walk in looking as if they are about to breath their last, only to walk out 45 minutes later looking as if they have been fitted with new body parts and fed copious amounts of pure oxygen, last week I jumped at the unexpected chance to take my seven-year-old son to the barbershop.
To cut a long story short, by the time I walked out of that barbershop, I had decided that I have been getting a raw deal from my hairdresser of many years.
I say this because not once, in all those years that she has been attending to my hair, have I ever dozed off as she works on my crowning glory — how could I with all that continuous jerking of the scalp that makes the eyes tear?
After such sessions, which don’t take less than two hours, I can hardly sleep for two days, thanks to an aching scalp during which I am tempted to pop a handful of pain killers to quell my throbbing head.
Yet here was a man in this barbershop snoring softly as this young woman gently massaged his scalp with what I imagined were extra-soft hands, if the blissful look and half smile on his face were anything to go by.
After the head massage, she moved to the neck, and then the shoulders, finishing off with a second head massage, this time using a plump towel dipped in warm water.
For 250 bob, this man had been transported to cloud nine, yet the few thousands I part with at my hairdresser’s every month have never transported me anywhere. If this isn’t a raw deal, what is?
Now you understand why I am seriously contemplating shaving off my hair, ditching my pain-inflicting hairdresser and moving to a barbershop near me.
The writer is Editor, The Network Magazine, in the Daily Nation. [email protected]; Twitter: @cnjerius.
