Haircut

Late last night, after I had finished writing here, I went and cut my hair. I have been cutting my own hair for seven years. It is difficult to think of a situation that made me more uncomfortable than sitting in a barber's chair having my hair cut. Also, half the time the barber would do a terrible job. It looked like he had used a knife and fork. After one particularly freakish atrocity, the time came around when my hair needed cutting once more. I was half drunk and looking at it in the mirror. Yes, it needed cutting, alright. I shivered and moaned to think of yet another trip to the *professional haircutter*. Why couldn't I take a crack at it? How hard could it be? Not that hard, surely! Instantly and with sure conviction I made up my mind, and rushed over and grabbed my scissors, wet my hair and began cutting. It wasn't hard. Cut some here, some there. Don't get wreckless and cut too much at one time. But not only was it not hard, it was liberating! No longer would I have to worry about sitting in that chair, sweating and feeling uncomfortable, making small talk and going home to find out what manner of butchery had been committed. It was another thing I could do myself! It was like a man who lived in a world where the only food came from one restaurant. Every day the man went to that restaurant. But that restaurant was a place of horror. Rats crawling on the floor, and cockroaches, the waitress was mean and smelled bad, and the food always made the man sick. The man felt sick in the stomach every time hunger came upon him. THEN! Then one day walking home, sick and sweating and in enormous despair, from that restaurant, he takes a different path home. Along that path, behold! he comes across a small and charming house. An old man and woman are standing outside, smiling and waving their arms in a welcoming, friendly manner. They are dressed in simple but clean clothes, they do not smell bad, they are a nice old couple, and they are standing behind a table with different food ingredients on the table. Some eggs, some bread, tomatoes, onions, all kinds of wonderful things! These kindly old folk inform the man of the purpose of these items, and how to cook them, one by one, in a particular order, and by various means; some boiled, some roasted, some fried. They sell these items to the man at a fraction of the cost of what the nightmare restaurant charges for its hideous, foul fare. They tell the man he can come back anytime, they will always be there. See! The man is liberated forever from having to go back to that nightmare restaurant that has always caused him such crippling misery!
And in the same way was I liberated to discover I could cut my own hair!