Fragile patch

On Sun­day, I went for my sec­ond hair­cut in a month at my friendly (and chio) hairstylist’s. Before the last hair­cut, I had been going to the barber’s for a con­ve­nient but nosso nice crew­cut. But you know, you have to pam­per your­self every now and again. And my hair grows really quickly.

So, for a lit­tle bit more than what I pay the bar­ber, I had a sham­poo and scalp mas­sage by some funky dude whose name I didn’t get again, and a styl­ish hair­cut by the chioest hair­styl­ist you’ll ever see this side of Orchard Road. Actu­ally, she could give me a Mohawk and I still wouldn’t mind. Or notice. Until I got home and my mother were to ask, ‘why you look like red indian?’

Cheryl the Chio started the usual hairstylist/barbershop con­ver­sa­tion, but steered clear of pol­i­tics (because this place, damned stylo one), ask­ing me what movies I had seen lately, whether I had been club­bing, and ask­ing why I didn’t go to the Zouk 20th Anniver­sary Bash.

I yam­mered away, as you would to a chio hair­styl­ist who asked you those things: Went to Mohd. Sul­tan instead lah, had teh lah, nowsa­day can­not drink lah, too old to party lah.

Then Cheryl sud­denly asked, ‘Eh, before you came back here last month, you went to the bar­ber for a crew­cut right?‘

I said yes.

‘You shouldn’t’

‘WHAT YOU MEAN FRAGILE AREA?’, I asked, so loudly that the other cus­tomers turned to look, caus­ing their respec­tive styl­ists to go tsk (or ‘zhk’, depend­ing on whether you’re a pinyinophile or a wade-gilesophile. Gotta get these things right, you know?)’ because they nearly cut their cus­tomers’ ears off.

‘There’s one part of your hair that grows more slowly than the rest’.

‘Don’t worry. I style for you and give that area more volume’.

Looks empty? It’s not. Everyone’s hid­ing below the win­dow sill.

Pre-haircut and wait­ing for my cup of tea.