Month: August 2002

*Craig*: made a friend today
*Pete*: Oh yes?
*Craig*: Took a book across the road to that grassy area, and a baby grass hopper came and sat on my knee
*Craig*: i smiled, he smiled
*Craig*: we sat and smiled for a while
*Pete*: You killed him
*Pete*: Didn’t you?
*Craig*: yes… but…
*Pete*: Nooo
*Craig*: after we smiled
*Craig*: for ages
*Craig*: kind of inevitable the death though, I wanted him to get off my page so I could turn it but he wouldnt…
*Pete*: Did you not give him a little shake?
*Pete*: Gentle one
*Craig*: several
*Craig*: then… thump
*Pete*: Please stop
*Craig*: sorry

Well, that was probably the second most notable haircut of my life, the most notable one being when I was attended to by a horny hairdresser who didn’t break bodily contact with me for the entire duration of half an hour, and drew my attention to this fact. That was great.

But no, just now.

I took an instant dislike to this guy. I don’t know whether it was his snug lime green t-shirt, his surly demeanour, or the fact that instead of inviting me into the chair from the waiting area he just looked at me with disdain in his eyes and waited for me to do the necessary deduction required to come to the conclusion that he was going to be cutting my hair.

So I sat down, and it was then his turn to take a dislike to me. I told him roughly how I wanted to look, but to feel free to express his artistic tendenciesI didn’t use those words. He looked at me like I had just slapped his mother, and demanded numbers. Uh, I suppose a 6 on top and a 2 on the back and sides?

He was partially satiated. “Oh gosh,” I thought, “this may have been a bad move.”

Then he assaulted me with the clippers. I wasn’t sure whether I needed to clarify that the hairs that I wanted cutting were not actually on the inside of my head, and he didn’t have to bash my skull through to get to them.

“He’s one of them,” I thought, “he’s going to attack me for five minutes and then take my money. He’s not a hairdresser.”

I looked around to check the faces of the other hairdressers in the shop, just to confirm that they had acknowledged his presence and had recognised him as actually working there. I seriously thought that he may have just walked in off the street.

His contempt for me grew with every light-hearted sentence that I attempted to offer. I soon learnt.

I also have a tiny mole on the back of my neck – I swear that he was running the clippers over it repeatedly just to try and dig it out.

And then it all went strange. As time went on, he became more and more meticulous, pulling out all sorts of strange contraptions. He pored over the back of my neck for quite a while, targeting specific stray hairs, and refining the shape of my sideburns. Could I have been wrong? It was looking increasingly like he was one of those hairdressers who is so damn good that they give the impression of being haphazard when in fact their skills are, as the prophet says, mad.

He finished up, battered my face in with those big fluffy brushes, and then ran a little electric shaver thing over my ears, which I nearly gave him a smack for. I think he may have been taking the piss with that one.

I paid my money and left. I daren’t look in the mirror. I don’t want to know.

So the night started with my guitarist and myself compiling a cassette of our current demos for an old friend, which got us listening to some of our old material and musing over how good the old times were.

Then, at five minutes to 10pm we decided that our bag of Doritos needed accompaniment, in the guise of a tub of dip. Our arrival at the supermarket at one minute to closing was dramatic, as I parked the car diagonally across two mother-and-child car parking spaces and we rushed in. We pleaded with the security guard, who succumbed to my immense charm and duly allowed us through, but some woman was being a bitch.

*”We’re closed!”*

“Just one tub of dip, please!”

*”We’re closed!”*

“We’ll be really quick!”

*”Closed!”*

Fuck you. I’m done being polite. Stop being so selfish. Twenty seconds will make no difference to you, but that tub of dip matters to us. And while we are having this discussionwhich, incidentally, was only actually occurring inside my head I could have bought the dip anyway.

So we went to the crisps aisle and grabbed the dip anyway, banking on the knowledge that we could just harry one of of the checkout girls. And we did. We put it down on the conveyor insistently. Had the stroppy woman come over and made a fuss, I would have laughed in her face at her ability to waste everyone’s time including her own, but I didn’t get the opportunity.

It was the perfect plan.

So five and a half hours later it was, of course, time to start moving furniture. And to perform the required transition would necessitate the disposal of an old, dying pot plant (pictured in the half-light).

We put the plant in the car and drove two miles south, until we were out of town and the streetlights were but a memory on the back-facing horizon.

And threw the tainted thing over a gate.

And came home and went to bed.

So our marketing department have sent out a mailshot – piece of A4 paper with our sales pitch on it and a Love Heart (sweet) attached to each one – don’t ask me what it is supposed to mean. Anyway, apparently we have caused some argy bargy at Heathrow airport. One of them got crushed, and for some reason the police have opened it to be greeted by a piece of paper saying “We’d love to do business with you”, all our office details, and some fine white powder.

I love my life.