A Little Off the Top

I've written before about my barber shop in Greenwich Village. It's a fantastic throwback with bad 1970s paneling on the wall and three barbers who look like they're frozen in time. When I go into the shop, I just sit down in the chair of whichever barber is free, although I really prefer the haircut that the guy in the first chair gives me. The last time I was in the shop, I got the guy in the third chair and wasn't really pleased with the results. I've decided that you need to be wary of a barber with a bad hairstyle. This guy is largely bald but the hair that he does have is dyed a weird shade of red -- in fact, his skin on his head seems to be the same shade of reddish orange. He looks a little like something put together by a police sketch artist. He seems like a perfectly agreeable gent though.

Today, I lucked out and got first chair. As always, the place was buzzing with activity on a Saturday afternoon, Italian music blared the radio and the guys chattered to each other in Italian. After I sat down in my chair, an older man wandered in and sat in chair #2 -- he also was chattering in Italian. Then an interesting exchange occurred during which I understood two things:

Barber 1: Italian chatter
Barber 2: More chatter
Patron 2: Cheerful chatter
Barber 2: Increasingly emphatic chatter
Barber 1: [Italian] ... "You're wrong!" ... [Italian]
Patron 2: [Italian] ... "Tiger Woods!" ... [Italian] ... then much laughter by everyone, except me.

I got my haircut and then went home and took a nap. Interestingly, when I woke up my hair appeared to be much shorter than I remembered before I took my nap. I think I was too busy trying to decipher what was going on to pay attention to my haircut. Nevertheless, you gotta love chair #1.