This year, not unlike last year, I took a few days off and migrated south in search of warmer weather. Like always, I found it in Lima, Peru where my wife had been for the month, planning our wedding. We had plans to fly up to the northern city of Cajamarca (historical note: it was the city where the Incas first made contact with the Conquistadors in the 16th century) and experience the distinct culture there and visit her extensive family that still lived in the area after both of her parents had moved away to the big city of Lima. But before we left, we had a day to kill.
One of Erika’s, like most girls I suppose, favorite things to do was to go to get her hair cut by her gay hairdresser and get her nails and toes done at the beauty salon. You could spend about three hours at the beauty salon getting full manicures and pedicures and massages done and walk out paying less than $10, it’s so cheap there. She had joked with me a few times that men could be found in such places and that I should give it a try. At risk of being mislabeled, I asked myself, “WWDBD?” Of course I knew the answer to that. David Beckham would get a haircut, a manicure, and a pedicure! I had arrived sufficiently shaggy, without a haircut for a few months and had worn my retainer enough the week before to prevent me from chewing my fingernails until they bled, so I was totally focused on getting a suave new haircut from a gay guy and having beautiful fingers and (maybe) toes when I met her extended family.
The only problem was, we had some errands to do, Liverpool was playing soon, the beauty salon to go to was a good 1.5 hours away on “mass” transit, and we had dinner (more like lunch) plans with some of her relatives nearby. CRAP - all that preparation work for nothing. But I REALLY NEEDED a haircut, and Erika told me I could go to her dad’s local shop to get a haircut. Her dad always looks presentable and I had never been to a, shall we call it, “lower income” barber shop before. So of course I would give it a try. I am generally of the opinion that nobody even notices that you’ve had a haircut except for you, so a “bad” haircut that anybody notices is extremely rare. On top of that, they told me the haircut would cost me S./3. That’s ONE DOLLAR, people. Holy crap, that’s awesome.
So off to the barber I went. Erika went with her mom to exchange some dollars for Soles, and I was actually called up by the cute barber while they were gone. My Spanish skills + her lack of bilingualness + describing how to cut my hair: Not good! Where the heck was Erika and why was she taking so long? Well, somehow I described how I wanted my hair cut and Erika came back shortly to further refine any instructions so all things turned out pretty well. This was the first time that I had gotten a haircut from a barber who actually used scissors – as in the kind you buy at Office Depot – along with the electronic shears. She finished it off with the old fashion shave on the edges – you know, the shaving cream along with a slightly dull, possibly rusty, non-disinfected straight edge. It was quite awesome and a decent haircut to boot. When I finished, I looked down at the few morsels of blond hair clumped together on the floor with all the black/dark brown hair with pride and threw down S./ 5 ($1.66) for a job well done.
J. Riley, this is the first half of the first day? I've gotta lot of writing to do!
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