MY
EXPERIMENTS WITH THE AMERICANS

 
 Home
 About Us
 Achu's Page
 Interests
 Friends
 Photos
 
Literature
 Technical
 Paintings
 
 
The most significant event of last week is that I had an American hair cut. I've not yet recovered from that shock.

Heard a lot about the ladies who normally perform haircuts in the US. A $10 hair cut (hereafter referred to as HC) is considered to be cheap and non-luxurious. This also means that you are a poor guy, and at most you are giving her a $1 tip. So the treatment will normally be bad. Being a first-timer, I thought I'd try for an expensive one, a $16 HC with a $2 tip.

On that fine weekend evening I went to the nearest HC shop, which is about 2 miles away (convert it to KMs) by walking (I don't have a car, and there is NO public transport on weekends). Registered as a "normal HC customer" in their computer. The lady at the counter spoke something, which I later guessed as "come after sometime". Waited there for about 50 minutes. (Who said, "Waiting is a psychological torture"? Some Englishman, I suppose. There are only 4 chairs outside and more than 9 people are waiting. Believe me, it’s a musical chair!)

When my turn came, it was a hard time to convey that I want my hair to be cut like the way I wanted. After about 3-4 tries, I gave up saying that "medium haircut" would do. She was not happy. She asked me if there was a partition in my style. I remember saying a bold NO. But after her "thandava" on my hair was over, to my surprise, I could clearly see at least 3 partitions of hair in my head. I bet you won't recognize me from a distance of 10 meters. Now I am a different guy (at least the look and feel).

"Well, gentleman, that's 16 plus tip", OK, agreed. But next time I'll be happy with $10 + tip HC!

Note: when I wrote this article, I didn’t know that I was going to write another one with a similar title. I wrote some more of 'em, but now I don’t have a copy of My Experiments with the Americans...2 with me. I have no idea who’ll have a copy!

(Written on May 26, 1998)

Read my other e-mails:
I Am an INDIYAN Now!
My Experiments with the Americans...3
My Experiments with the Americans...4
The Joy of Six (Plagiarism at Its Best?)
My Experiments with the Americans...5
FOKANA - All In The Game
On E-Mail Hoaxes

I too Got a Ticket
War and Peace

 

[ Home ] [ About Us ] [ Achu's Page ] [ Interests ] [ Friends ] [ Photos ] [ Literature ] [ Technical ] [ Paintings ]