Running with shears pt.3

The day started out just like any other, "Good morning ladies!" I say every morning when I check in. I clock in go towards the break room to hang up my coat then a walk to my station to get set up for the day. The day looked rather uneventful and the clock was not in my favor. I make small chit chat with my class mates and ask them how their weekends went, just the usual stuff really. Then I decide to go upstairs and study the material in this weeks theory class. The study of nails, sounds a little bit interesting right? After what seems like an eternity of trying to figure out a way to remember Onychauxis, I hear the call, "Matt your client is in, Matt." I put my things away and headed down stairs. I grab the ticket on my way to my station, and it reads Lacey Spriggs. So I prep for a ladies cut and go out to great her. Well it seems that I was way of the map on this one, Lacey was a man. He could see the surprise in my eyes when he stood up, and just smiled and said "I'm here." "It happens all the time" he goes on. So I re-prep my station bringing out the clippers and making small talk while I set up. It turns out that after some discussion he reveals that he will be receiving an award for his Brother Thurman Spriggs next month at Simpson college. Well my curiosity got the better of me and I asked "What for?" He went on to tell me that it is the George Washington Carver 2010 award, and it was being given to the 12 Tuskegee Airmen from Iowa. I was really put right next to myself, in that instance. He went on to tell me about his brother and how he wasn't able to make the trip from Virginia beach to accept the medal. Well I knew then and there I had to make him look sharp. A bald fade it was, as we exchanged war stories back and forth, I was like a little boy clinging to every word he had in his story. After a great deal of laughter, we continued to talk about the Olympics, and how much he enjoyed them this time around. The time seemed to fly by as he shaped up really quick. He pulled out a dollar and handed it in my direction. I told him that it just didn't seem right taking money from a fellow veteran, but he insisted. I walked him out gave him a firm handshake and told him to come back and see me. I really enjoyed cutting his hair. I cleaned up my area, and thought to myself that I was really proud to have him in my chair. Back up to the books I went. Round two, Paronychia, how will I ever remember that? Lunch time... and we're back. The books say we have 16 people coming in to get their hair put up for some type of student dance or whatever. So I mentally prepare myself for what I was about to endure. See my skills for up dos are really non-existent, but I'm brave enough to at least try and face my weaknesses. I hear one of the instructors downstairs, "a big yellow bus just pulled up, and I'm leaving!" she says. I gather every bit of courage I have and head down the stairs, only to see a big group of special needs kids sitting around. I was a bit confused for a moment, as I had prepared myself for up dos. I went to the counter and asked what was going on, they said there had been some kind of misunderstanding on the telephone. So they all loaded back on the bus and headed out. There was one guy just standing near the counter, and I almost said "you missed your bus". However I did reserve my comment and asked if there was anything I could do, they asked me if I wanted to cut this guys hair. It was down to his belt line it was so long. I gave them the deer in the headlights look after I seen how long it was. They told me it was for "Locks of Love", and immediately, I jumped at the opportunity to cut this guys hair. I better explain a bit about myself here for just a minute. I like kids, I like doing things for less fortunate kids. I'm also a Shriner clown in the circus and my favorite thing to do is hang out with the special needs kids, feed them tootsie rolls and enjoying the circus with them. So I have a huge heart when it comes to this sort of thing. So I told this guy, I need to prep my station and Ill come out and get him. He's a shy guy so he just nods and takes a seat. As I'm preparing my station I'm getting all water eyed, cause I think this just rocks, and I tell myself "Just hold yourself together Matt, its gonna be awesome!" I walked back and got my client and the paperwork and asked him why he was doing it. He gave little response, and just said, he needed it cut and just wanted to donate the hair to someone that could use it. My classmates all gathered around and wanted to watch. We put his hair into a ponytail and cut it off right at the back of his head. We took a couple of pics and Ill try and post them on here for your viewing pleasure. So after the big hacking off of the pony tail we started to discuss what he wanted to his hair to look like now that he didn't have the long hair anymore. He just told me he wanted about one inch all over. Well this guy had a pretty good sized head with fine hair, so I talked him into something a little more fitting for him, noting we can always go shorter if he didn't like the cut. So here we go, talking about what he likes to do, and getting to know Ben was not an easy task. he didn't want to give out any information at all. So I made a couple of remarks that I liked to play video games, and was having a couple problems in a few certain parts. That was all it took to get him to open up and tell me everything I needed to know about this game, and of course once you crack an egg, its easy to get it all out right? So after he told me about his gaming life, I asked him about family, his friends and that provided me all the time I needed to finish out his cut. So when he left he looked like this, I personally thought this was so much more fitting. Okay so the pics of Ben, are above the blog. It just goes to show you, you never know what is going to walk through that door. I cut a Veterans hair that will be accepting an award on behalf of his brother, one of 12 Tuskegee Airmen from Iowa, and a big hearted 20 year old that wanted to make a difference in someones life. I may have been struggling with the study of nails, but I had one heck of an awesome day. I hope yours was just as awesome, and thanks for stopping by!

Running with Shears pt2

Within 45 minutes of finishing my final, I heard my name called again over the intercom. "Matt your client is here, Matt". Oh my god man, so soon... Have they no mercy,... now what? So I prepared my station thinking to myself, "Maybe this will be an easy cut, yeah it will be a breeze I'm sure." I went out to greet my client and showed her to my station. It was a very sweet lady that had bleached her hair out several months ago with a friend. She had very fine hair with very uneven outgrowth. As I talked to her about what she wanted to do, her voice kept cutting out as I thought, Oh my.... What are we going to do with this. She didn't want it colored, she just wanted it cut. So after we finally got onto the same page, I got the attention of my instructor, and explained what she wanted to do. With a certain level of uncertainty I proceeded to the shampoo bowl. Between the slight paranoia and the "I'm about to freak out" feelings the shampoo went by very quickly. Back to the chair I started the 90 degree haircut. Cutting my guide I realized that the outgrowth was going to mess with me. Some winter brown and some very golden yellow. I lost my guide several times just on the top as the hair color provided the perfect camouflage or the occasion. Quickly deciding that fine hair wasn't going to be my specialty I found the guide and went about my business with the cut. After about 45 minutes of cutting I felt that I had finished the cut and had my instructor come inspect my work. The look on her face was completely clear, that I had messed up somewhere along the way. Swallowing the big lump in my throat I explained what I had done, and she inspected the cut. The cut was fine but it was the mixture of outgrowth and uneven bleached hair that made everything look uneven. She talked to the client, explaining what was going on and what we could do to color correct the hair to look good. She politely declined the color correction and said that in a couple of more cuts the prior bleaching would be all cut out. Agreeing with her, my instructor stamped off my ticket and went about her way. Now here is where the real fun begins. Have you ever seen someone uncoordinated try and do something you thought was funny? That's me with a brush and a blow dryer. Yep, I hate to say it but someone should host me some sort of telethon. I am in desperate need of a blow drying tutorial. As awkward as it was, her hair was super fine and dried quickly. I put just a bit of product in her hair, shaped her up the best I could and sent her on her way. As soon as she left I felt like collapsing because I was so relieved to be done with my first real client. The rush I had for the next several hours was very intoxicating. I told our receptionist that I wasn't scared to cut anymore, so she laughed in an evil kind of way and searched fervently as she scheduled my next appointment. The next day came and I was feeling pretty good about myself, "Matt, your client is here, Matt." I'm sure you get the picture of how this works by now. I went downstairs and prepped my station, envisioning long layers of hair and asking myself what would the Zohan do. I went to greet my client and to my surprise, he was a 3 three year old Dinosaur. Yep, I thought they were extinct too. He had his arms pulled up to his chest to shorten his arms, and screamed Rrrrraaaaaaaaaaarrrr! at the top of his lungs. I smiled, wiped the bead of sweat from my brow, and said "right this way". As he stalked right behind me, I felt as if I was part of the land of the lost crew, about to be eaten at any moment. I sat him up in my chair and asked dad what we wanted to do. He said, "just cut a little bit off the top, and clipper the sides, you know like a little boy hair cut." I felt like telling this man, you have a Dinosaur for a child.... but I decided to keep that to myself for the time being. I caped him up, sprayed him down and just about to make my first cut and Rrrraaaaaaaaaaaar! at himself in the mirror. His dad said, "Be good and sit still or you wont get any pop." Thinking, yeah feed him some more crack dad, get him all smacked out of his mind and take him to get his hair cut. I made a total of five unsuccessful attempts to cut his hair until I tried to engage in some form of dialog with this little dinosaur. I mentioned that I had a truck, and he seamed to be more interested in trying to lick himself in the mirror, than he was in my truck. So I called upon the wisdom of my instructor to teach me the Vulcan death grip to put this kid to sleep. She quickly arrived at my station and I was excited to see the Vulcan death grip in action, she put her hands out in a weird position, took my shears and the moment was coming, here it comes the Vulcan death Grip! And she starts to sing the ABC's... then the Barney song... then back to the ABC's. She has single handedly turned this little dinosaur into a little boy. I'm thinking to myself, "she is way better than David Copperfield." I felt so useless, I tried the Vulcan death grip on myself, and failed miserably. Shortly after that cut I felt as if I was in a military style debriefing meeting about how to cut little kids hair. Sing to them, give them the spray bottle, karate chop them in the neck, and send the parent to the waiting room. Writing down notes like I was a prepping for some sort of dissertation, I soaked it all in. My next few cuts were men's cuts, and they went by very quickly. It seems that my fading abilities are much better than my kids cutting abilities. Or so I thought, I had my first bald fade cut walk through the door. This was sure to challenge my fading skills. Even the instructor was a little nervous. I greeted him, escorted him to my station talked to him about what I could and could not do, and we got started. Using the number one guard on the top, I asked him if the top was short enough. Take it a little shorter he says. I remove the guard and pull back my lever to give him the full length of the clipper blade. He said that was fine, and that he wanted to have it faded up to the top of his head. Explaining to him that the clippers we have aren't that great of quality for this type of haircut and that I couldn't get that close, but I would do my best. Finishing out the cut the fade was pretty impressive and he wasn't pleased. He was very upset at the fact that I didn't have 12 sets of clippers to provide him with an edging and a super close bald fade, but was very pleased with what I had done, with what I had to work with. I called my instructor over and she talked to him for just a bit and explained that we were a school of cosmos and not barbers. She offered a little bit of lotion, or moisturizer and applied it to his head and sent him on his way. She told me good job, and signed off on my level sheet. Looking around the school, I can start to see why girls hate each other unless they are best friends. The drama they create is the worst I have ever seen. I have personally witnessed a girl say something to another girl, and that same girl goes and tells another girl something completely different. You know that game Telephone? Where you tell some one something and by the time it gets around the circle, its completely distorted from the original. That's what happens except at an incredibly fast rate, almost instantaneous. And these aren't young girls, these are single parents, that you would expect to be much more mature than that. No offense to single parents, but I now know why these girls are single. Because no man wants to deal with that kind of garbage. I find it amazing, and I personally think it should be on wild kingdom, or Animal Planet, Untamed and uncut. Meeeeeoooooow! But enough for now, as I have gone on and on, and need some food. Ill write more later. Thanks for stopping by!