MAN IN THE HOOD: Thou shall not cheat on your barber

There is a key commandment in the hood – thou shall not cheat on your barber.

This commandment wasn’t inscribed in a stone tablet and collected by Moses. It’s just there and you just have to know it or else you will learn about it the hard way, like I did.

A barber is like a potential lover. You only have a maximum of two dates to make up your mind whether you like them or not. If you go for the third consecutive date, it means you are content with what they bring to the table.

For the barber, a third consecutive haircut means you are technically in a shaving relationship now. You have agreed to be their one and only. And like any other relationship, there ought to be loyalty. No cheating.

UNFAITHFUL

Today, I want to confess to my infidelity. I cheated on my barber. After more than 20 haircuts, I made a huge mistake and walked into a new, flashy kinyozi that had just been opened a few miles from where I live.

It is my friend Freddy who led me to sin. I guess I should have listened when my primary school teachers taught me the ABCs (Avoid Bad Company). Freddy was totally bad company.

He told me how this new barber was able to not just separate you from your hair but also create art on your head. The shaving machine was to him what a painting brush was to Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. Apparently, he didn’t just shave you, he elevated you. He transformed your head into a jewel in motion.  

He also told me that the masseuses were really good. Every kinyozi has one or two masseuses nowadays but most of them haven’t mastered their craft. Some just press your head like they are pressing avocados at a mama mboga’s stall.

According to Freddy, the ones at his barber’s were experts in a world of novices. He also told me that one of them looked like super-actress Scarlett Johansson. With all that hyping, how would I not go? Surely!

So, I paid a visit to the new barber but he was not all he was advertised to be. First of all, he had dreadlocks. Never trust a barber with dreadlocks. What does he know about haircuts? Absolutely nothing, as I came find out. The kinyozi looked cool, like a club in Atlanta (as if I have been to one), but the experience was horrible.

The music was too loud and all requests to lower the volume were ignored. Psssst…Nema guys, are you reading this? Yes, I am low-key snitching. The barber then shaved me just the way I instructed him to, but he made one big blunder – he extended the hairline deeper than he should have, making my forehead look like grabbed land. That’s something every man dreads.    

One of the massage girls did indeed look like Scarlett Johansson but I think she’d have a better career as a wrestler than a kinyozi masseuse. She was violent. By the time she was done with me, my neck was hurting and my head felt like a pressure cooker.

What’s worse is that I was charged Sh100 more than my usual kinyozi. That experience was the true illustration of poor decisions. I regretted every minute.

LESSON LEARNT

My tribulations didn’t end there. Trust fate to always play practical jokes on mankind. Just as I walked out, I bumped into the masseuse of my usual kinyozi. I said hello to her but she pretended she had not seen me. I was pretty sure she was going to report me to my main barber. And report me she did.

The next day, with my head hung low, I dragged myself back to my usual kinyozi to fix my messed-up hairline. My barber wasn’t his jovial self. I could tell he was genuinely hurt. If you looked keenly, the frown wrinkles on his face had formed the words ‘Why did you have to do this to me? What did I do to deserve this?’

He only uttered two words to me the entire time. Those words were “Ni Sawa (It's fine).” This was after I conjured up more than five minutes worth of lies to explain to him why I had cheated. He didn’t buy any of it but he shaved me well anyway.

And when I gave him a new Sh1000 note, he gave me old, rusty, cellotape-covered notes as change. Clearly, that was intentional. Indeed, hell hath no fury like a barber scorned.  

I am afraid that he’s going to keep our association strictly professional going forward. He is going to put an end to his stories. And this makes me sad. I love his stories. I’d thus like to own up to my mistakes. 

To my day one barber, I want to convey my deepest apologies for messing around with another barber. I’d like to dedicate the song “Sorry” by Rick Ross featuring Chris Brown, or “Sorry” by Justin Bieber. Any song with ‘sorry’ as the title will do.

I was simply unable to resist temptation. It happens to the best of us. We are only human right? I am sorry for emulating the biblical Eve instead of emulating the biblical Job. Ni kashetani kadogo tu kaliniingia (The devil lied to me). I should have known better. Please forgive me! It shall never happen again. I promise!

From today, my head is all yours, until baldness do us apart.