In my heydey as a hairdresser, I worked in a busy barber shop on Sunday afternoons. I loved it, lived for it, and I was good at it. I was fast and furious with those scissors.
I worked with three other hairdressers on Sundays. Roddie, Shannon and Deanna. We wouldn’t play the radio on Sundays because it blared all week long and we wanted it quieter when we worked on Sunday.
We all took turns answering the phone and booking appointments. It was the end of the day one Sunday afternoon and we were finishing up our last customers. We all had one customer each and there was one more customer waiting at the front. He was reading a newspaper.
The phone rang and it was my turn to answer it, which I did. An intoxicated male voice on the other end of the line asked
"Do you do stiffs "?
"I beg your pardon"? I asked, incredulously
"Do you do stiffs "? he slurred, again.
"Do you mean DEAD PEOPLE "? I asked, without realizing that I now had the attention of the rest of the salon and they could only hear my side of the conversation.
He said "Well my friend died yesterday and he needs a haircut for the funeral".
"They have people at the mortuarys who do DEAD PEOPLE’s hair"I informed him. He already knew that, he said, and proceeded to tell me that his dead friend used to come to our salon all the time and it would be great if he could bring him in and get his hair cut for his funeral.
By this time my voice was uncharacteristically loud and getting very shrill.
"DO NOT BRING YOUR DEAD FRIEND HERE TO HAVE HIS HAIR CUT, WE DO NOT DO DEAD PEOPLE"!!!!!!!!
The intoxicated man on the other end of the line began to beg, saying it cost over hundred dollars to have his friends hair done at the mortuary and couldn’t we please please please let him bring him in. I then ended the conversation with one last statement:
WE DO NOT DO DEAD PEOPLE, WE WILL NEVER DO DEAD PEOPLE, DO NOT BRING A DEAD PERSON HERE
I hung up the phone with an angry flourish and looked up at the customer sitting in the waiting room. He had lowered his newspaper so that all I could see were his eyes (like Wilson on Home Improvement) and he said"I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t do dead people either"!and brought the newpaper back up to cover his entire face.
I went back to my station and my customer said :
"Its a good idea not to allow dead people to come here, because if you do, the parking lot could fill up with hearses and it will scare all the live people away".
Deanna, who worked at the station next to mine said:
"Well, on the other hand, dead people would never complain about the work we do " (she wasn’t a very good hairdresser, really lousy at haircuts).
Her customer said "And, if you did do dead people, all you’d have to do is the top and the sides".
Roddie added " I’d have done him for 50 dollars"!
To which Shannon replied "You’d do anyone for 50 dollars"!