A few weeks ago my husband came home with a buzzed haircut. Normally he wears his hair short and his beard cropped close, but this was entirely new. His thought? Having a buzz cut will be an easy, low-maintenance way to keep his thick hair manageable while we travel.
Um, remember we aren’t leaving for a year or so.
This is one of the reasons I love him. He is always planning ahead, seeking out the best solutions, and working to make life better. He sometimes gets frustrated at my “just in time” methods, and I sometimes get overwhelmed at the pace he calls normal.
He decided that since the cut is basically a “3″ setting on the electric razor all over, “we” can easily maintain this cut at home with his beard trimmer. “We” apparently includes me.
So last week he stood naked in the tub while I took the beard trimmer, set it on a 3, and proceeded to trim his very thick hair. Unsuccessfully.
You see, having never done this before I did not know what to expect. And the poor little beard trimmer had no idea it was supposed to perform that much hair removal at one time. My husband was getting frustrated because the clippers weren’t clipping, I wasn’t trying hard enough, and his great idea was not panning out so well.
Eventually we figured out the beard trimmer was getting clogged really quickly, so frequent cleanings made the job a little bit easier. But it is still a tricky business, and when it was all over there were a few bumps around his head and a lot of hair in the bottom of the tub. This may be why the Flow-Bee really never caught on.
I had visions of a plumber’s bill much larger than the $20 we were saving on his haircut.
Before showering off, he took a look at himself in the bathroom mirror, saw a few of the bumps in his hair and grabbed the beard trimmer to finish the job himself.
I could only stand there in shock as he quickly buzzed the back of his head with the beard trimmer and left a 3-inch patch of scalp peeking through.
Neither one of us said a word for a moment, and then we both burst out laughing. All the tension that had built up was gone in an instant.
After he showered he asked if was really that noticeable. And it was. I asked him if he was going to relay the story at work, and he said he would…with the alternate ending that I carved the bald spot in his head. And being the understanding wife (with a full head of hair), I said he could.
Lesson: There is more than one way to accomplish most things, and we should agree on a plan before moving ahead to avoid frustration and working against each other. Though being able to laugh at ourselves when things go wrong is good, too.
About Betsy
We are ROLLING on the floor laughing at this one! I love the way you paint the picture of the "event" – almost like we were there, but thank god we weren’t, Warren being naked and all! ha ha ha!
I should have included the fact that I was fully dressed and Max was watching curiously from the door, wondering why humans would want to part with their "fur." Glad you liked the story.
Pat and I haven’t laughed this hard in forever! Sometime have Pat share our story of home hair cuts. It involves friends, a few beverages and a bald spot on his chest!
We can’t _wait_ to see this. Can you make sure the bald patch is still in tact for Thanksgiving?
By the time I wrote this post the incident was a week old, and with a buzz cut it is already pretty much grown over by now. You can still see his scalp, but it is no longer bald. And he invested in a barber’s clipper that should be arriving from Amazon today. Stay tuned for version 2.0 as we try this again this week – hopefully with more success!
I think every guy who cuts his own hair must have done that at least once! My brother recently forgot the clip was off the trimmer and did the same thing! Thankfully for some reason having the hair cut so short made his scalp look sorta gray and for a few days I just brushed some makeup (usually gray eyeshadow!) onto it and you couldn’t really even tell! lol
Jen, that’s hysterical. I never even thought of using makeup as a coverup for Warren! Truth be told, he probably wouldn’t have let me. I think he kinda liked telling the story.