Gather round all ye who dare, for a harrowing tale of razors and bourbon!

as anyone who knows me in person knows, i had a mass off hair spewing out from underneath my trademark beanie-cap. Since i have a dress-up birthday party tonight and i'm going as Clark Kent, i thought i'd go for a haircut since he is very neat and proper. The events that unfolded were so surreal, i didn't quite believe they were happening to be quite honest.

I was waiting in the seats for two guys to get their haircut before me. I had two hours to kill in town before a different party (a farewell party for ). it was about 5:30pm. As i waited, the hairdresser (a bulky maori guy) gave me $10 and asked me to go down the road and buy him a 4pack of bourbons from the liquor shop. "but don't tell anybody!"
i figured "what the hell. i'm waiting anyway", so i went and bought them.

so he cracks one open, hands it to the guy he's cutting, opens one for himself and opens one for me. figuring if i start now i don't have to buy any from the bar i started drinking. so he starts going to town on this guys hair while we're drinking bourbon and 2 asian girls walk in. one of them wanted her fringe cut, so the guy asked me if i minded waiting until after them. since i had time to kill in town anyway, i said OK. besides, it'd give me time to finish my drink before he started.

by the time i get into the chair, i've had one can and he's had two (assuming he didn't have any before i arrived!). everyone had gone so it was just me and him. he had his gangsta beats playing over the speakers and he was freestylin' as he was cutting my hair. it was new, so i just went with it. i was a little worried about how much was was stumbling though... and he kept dropping the comb...

then, in a wild, rap inspired gesture, he jabbed me in the eyelid with his scissors! i was like "whoaaa! jeeze, that could have been a LOT worse dude!"
so he was all very apologetic (as he should have been) and he went back to cutting my hair, but he didn't stop freestylin'.

when he got to the other side of my face, in another maddened bout of rhythm, he scratched his comb across my face.
again he was apolgetic, but i was half drunk anyway so it was okay. i was, however, acutely aware that he was ALSO drunk and that he was wielding sharp objects near my precious face.
at the same time though, a weird kind of sadistic curiosity held me there... it was such a bizarre situation i couldn't help but see what happened next.

he gave me another half a can to finish (you can't say no to that guy... i tried), so i was feeling it as i'm quite the light-weight as it is. once he'd finished on my haircut (maybe an hour? this guy was in no hurry), he sent me to pick up some more bourbon and said he'd clean up my beard when i got back.

So, he cracks open another one and starts working on my beard. first he uses the clippers. that was fine. although he did fumble and drop them on the floor.
but when he picked up the cutthroat razor alarm bells really started to go off inside my head! they're scary enough when the barer is sober!

I told him to to freestyle this time.

as he was shaving my beard (quite roughly. it felt quite scratchy) his girl walks in. she seemed quite angry after her day at work and was not happy when she saw cans lying around!
"they're not mine!", the barber claimed.
she looked at me accusingly in the mirror "did you buy these for him?".
i decided to pick the side of the person with the blade at my throat.
"um.. no."
"they better not be as payment for the haircut!"

it got a bit awkward in there at that point and the shaving got a bit rougher. i was pretty keen to just get out of there at this point, when i noticed there was BLOOD on my face! he'd actually cut my face! it was about a 3cm cut on the right cheek.

i paid my $20 (i think he wanted more but screw that) and got out of there. that haircut took about two hours all up for just a trim!
walking down the road queen street and dabbing the blood from my face, i couldn't help but laugh as i thought about what had just happened.

it really was quite a close shave, wasn't it?