Author: pete

Maria used to cut my hair. And she was good.

We met on Valentine’s Day this year. She was on a break from her boyfriend, and was looking forward to her shift ending in half an hour so that she could go off on a girls’ night out with her friends. I was looking forward to having my hair cut, because the following day I was to take a female friend to the theatre, and though there was no romantic angle on this rendezvous, I still wanted to look nice.

We hit it off. I liked the way that she ran her fingers through my hair, and she liked the way that I liked the way that she ran her fingers through my hair. She cat my hair with precision, with deliberation and care. She made me look good.

She cat my hair on the day before mine and Karen’s first meal out together, the meal that eventually became our first date. At the time I hadn’t known that it was a date, but had I known, I’m sure that Maria would have wished me luck.

Then it all went wrong. The salon where Maria worked changed management. I put it off for as long as possible, but eventually I couldn’t hang on any longer. I needed a haircut. I phoned up for Maria but her shifts had been changed and she no longer worked at the times when I was available – I was going to have to have my hair cut by some spotty young oik.

The haircut wasn’t so good. The neckline was wrong, the sideburns were all wrong. Nobody could cut hair like Maria. I was plunged into depression, and lost my job, my car, my house, my wife and my shoes. The love af-hair had come to an end.

Today I ventured into a hairdressers for my first time in ages. From the outside, it looked cheap and tacky, exactly the sort of place which would not remind me of Maria. Maria was clean. Maria was elegant. Maria had a wondrously harmonious Southern accent, which twanged and pinged as if she was playing my hairs like a gutbucket.

I got inside and realised I had made a mistake. This place was clean. Seriously clean. Nicely decorated, shiny, and totally empty except for an attractive brunette behind the reception desk. No queue, I thought. Might as well.

The girl stood up and directed me to a free chair in front of a mirror, and proceeded to cut my hair. She asked me what I wanted, and then set about it. No small talk or chit-chat until the very end, when we had an amusing exchange about hair gel.

The haircut is good. Not as good as Maria, but time can sometimes heal.

Best bit of all was that she charged half as much as Maria used to.

You could say that she’s a cheap whair.

Now nominate me for Post of the Month.

Whilst walking from Westminster towards old Queenie’s place on Saturday afternoon, Karen and I were overtaken by a small girl on a pink bicycle, who shot off into the distance ahead of us. Bemused that she seemed to be out in London all alone, I suggested to Karen that it would be awfully easy to just grab the kid and run, going so far as to describe the dramatic scene that would be created by the image of a pink bicycle left lying on the ground, its rear wheel slowly rotating.

At this point the mother (yes, there had been a mother present) then walked past us. Whoops, I thought.

Feeling slightly awkward, we took a right at the next junction, partly to avoid a confrontation with the mother (who probably didn’t fancy the idea of her kid being taken) and also to trail a girl wearing a pink skirt with a particularly loose waistband (Karen’s idea, not mine).

Over the course of the next five minutes, the girl on the bicycle crossed our path about four times. The first couple of times it was moderately amusing, and I wondered if perhaps she actually wanted to be kidnapped.

But by the fourth time it was just scary, so I grabbed the girl off of the bike and threw her over the fence into the lake in St James’ Park, leaving a pink bicycle lying on the ground with its rear wheel rotating slowly.

Driving up (pay careful attention to the upness) the hill into work on Friday, I rounded a corner to see a van driving along in front of me with one of its back doors open. One of those big cotton reels of cable (about two or three feet across) had fallen out of the back and was chasing the van along. The driver drove on, oblivious.

Much as I yearn for the comically satisfying realisation of the dream of a big heavy thing rolling down a hill, mowing down cars, I decided to do my hero act. I drove up as close as I could behind the big cotton reel, so that when it lost momentum and started to roll back down, it wouldn’t have far to go until my bumper caught it. I carried this out with great aplomb, and there is just a tiny scratch on my bumper as a result.

There was quite a crowd too, but I don’t know how much they saw. I didn’t get a round of applause, which I am quite pissed off about.

Holding my shopping basket in my right hand, I slowly rotated clockwise.

My basket met resistance – something solid.

As I looked down to investigate what I had bumped into that had not been there a second ago, I saw a small blonde girl dropping towards the floor.

She started to cry, and continued to cry for a long time. I hung around, trying to make apologetic faces at her, in the hope that she would see that there was no harm intended, and she no longer had to continue this wailing fit.

She fixed me with a steely glare from the shoulder of her mother, and continued to bawl defiantly.

I then beckoned Karen over, climbed onto her shoulder, and cried right back at her.

Triumphantly, I smacked her again with the basket.

A good day, when all is said and done.