It's been a week since I last went out to eat, surviving on leftovers and handfuls of nuts and berries. Getting ready for prospecting.... Today I'm a bit hungry, but there's a problem, the Indian curry shop I frequent is next to the hairdressers.
Alberto's or Alfredo's, I don't know which, but I stopped by there a couple of times and got my haircut. Alfredo/Alberto - a short, muscular greek/spaniard/??, thick accent, long permed hair, mullet in front, lisps his words as he massages my scalp, tells me not to stand under the shower, that's why it's thinning on top, too much water, he explains, will kill your hair just like it will kill the grass...
I wonder, especially as I have to duck in the shower to wash my hair, and the hair on my ears is growing in at a record rate (I have an ear-to-ear combover planned in the next couple of years, not long now...)
His haircuts, they're OK, he's very meticulous, but somehow they always seem to grow out in a couple of weeks and I find myself needing another. SO I give up, go to Jen, dire salon in the NE of Calgary close to my thrift shop tour, Jen, a huge girl, 6' tall, 300 lbs, covered in tatoos and piercings, but she's quick, no BS, in-and-out with the haircut you wanted...
And with the haircut I wanted I can't walk past Alfredo's/Alberto's, walk instead around the block, approach it from another angle, eat, but on the exit he's there, outside the salon, having a cigarette, he just looks at me sadly as I guiltily hurry past...