The Barber Shop Incident

I don't remember if I've written this story down but it's worth retelling. It's one of Kevin and I's finer moments as adults.

Andrew, like most boys, has an obnoxious cowlick. He was also fairly obnoxious at the hair cutting place so Kevin and I finally started doing it ourselves when he was 2. It wasn't worth the pain of having someone else do it. We did pretty good when you consider it was a burr cut.

Anyway, Andy and I had begun spending the carpool waiting period at Rachel's school playing with another mom and her 2 year old - Andrew was 2 as well. She and I were conversing one day about hair cuts and the torture and she said she had a great barber named Kenny who was so great with her boy. I asked where Kenny worked. She told me; I recognized the shopping center and figured we'd give it a try.

So Saturday morning, Kevin and I hauled Andy over to the shopping center. We yanked open the door and bustled in.

To a total upscale black salon. It never occurred to me that Carpool Friend was black.

People stared at us. Seriously, the shop almost came to a stop and looked at the caucasians infiltrating.

Kevin recovered first and asked if Kenny was working. With straight faces, they directed us to the back.

Of course Kenny was in the back. We made our way to the back, and I made the introductions and dropped the carpool name so he didn't think we were weird or anything.

Because THAT would have been the odd part - not having a connection to Kenny the Barber.

Kenny had a customer and thought he'd be done in about an hour. We said we'd go hang out in the shopping center and we made our way out. Through the entire salon. Of straight faces. And near silence.

Out of sight of the salon, I turned to Kevin and we both started laughing. I asked what we should do and Kevin said "well, we've already gone in there. Might as well come back or we're going to look like bad people"

Because our concern was that these nice upscale salon people might recognize us somewhere and call us on prejudice or something. And we didn't want to look stupid.

So an hour later we made our way back in to Kenny. He plopped Andy up in the seat and started messing with Andy's hair. And then out of nowhere, totally ruining our suave appearance, I blurt out "so I bet you don't get much blond hair on the floor much, huh?"

Kenny laughed and shook his head. "Nope, this is a first." The ice was broken and we all made polite conversation for the rest of the rest of the haircut.

It was a good haircut. And we never went back. And I'm certain we are still fodder for good entertainment in the salon.

"Let me tell you about the time these white people just stumbled in here..."