When Hairy Met Trimmy

I wanted a beard and moustache trimmer. So I asked my friend, who’s a whiz at all things electronic, to pick one up for me.

Well, he did.

I fell in love with the sleek lil piece with the curves in the right places and called her Trimmy. Then I noticed the comb and the trimmer guides and a lil ole manual that said I could also use Trimmy to trim my hair. What a bonus! I needn’t visit the barber any more. Yeah, I know they call ’em hairdressers now, but barber it was that came home once a month to give me the grandma-approved crew cut and barber he shall remain to the end of my days. I hate visiting the barber.

So I kept the piece to be charged, waiting eagerly for 3:00 p.m., Sunday, when I would be rid of the barber forever.

3:00 p.m., Sunday.

Newspapers spread in the approved fashion to catch the trimmings. Towel over my shoulders to keep the itchy stuff out of my clothes.

I begin.

In the manual-approved style, I begin with the back of my head, which I can’t see, and shove Trimmy up my tangled tresses.

It feels like Trimmy is trying to pull my hair up by the roots. I disentangle Trimmy and bring her before my de-spectacled eyes. Trimmy has indeed pulled my hair up by the roots. Fully three of them. I shove Trimmy in again. Into battle, my hearty!

Minutes pass. Staying with the manual-approved style, I have neatly trimmed the front, back and sides.

Trimmy’s battery dies.

I am left with a partial crew-cut on the back, sides and front of my head and a clump of hair on the top. So far I haven’t looked in a mirror. Who needs a mirror when I’m going to trim all my hair to a 6 mm length?

I look in the bathroom mirror.

I look like one of those Brazilian aborigines they show on National Geographic, except I’m less dignified.

Mother raises an eyebrow, which is the equivalent of us lesser mortals kicking our heels and doing the fandango, in protest. You see I have been deputed, by virtue of being the only somewhat-able-bodied human at hand, to drop her and her luggage to the railway station so she can visit one of her other progeny, my sister down South. Only, she does not wish to be seen in public with a Brazilian with a bad barber.

Creative genius I, I save the evening with a baseball cap. I drop Mother and luggage to the station, to find that the train has been delayed. Indefinitely.

Mother sits on someone else’s luggage and carefully eyes the ground to ensure that no rats get near her. I stay with Mother’s luggage, until the passing of half-an-hour dictates that I sit down too. Mother’s luggage being the soft kind, I am constrained to sit on someone else’s hard luggage – very accommodating, these railway guards, with their tin trunk luggage – right next to Mother.

When I do gather the courage to look into Mother’s face, I see only a kind of odd wonderment at her forty-year old progeny’s insistence on behaving like an adolescent.

An hour and a half later, Mother safely ensconced in her seat on the train, I return home to my freshly charged Trimmy.

I wonder if Mother will make good on her promise, thirty years ago, to have me committed to a mental institution, so that humanity may survive. Hair intact.