That which does not kill them...

You know the old story about the man trying to fix his wobbly chair? He realizes that one leg is shorter than the others, so he sets about trimming three of the legs to match. Of course, he ends up with one leg that's too long, so he cuts it down, etc., etc., until nothing is left but four nubs and the chair is worthless.

Apparently this concept of perfectionism-gone-wild also applies to haircuts, because tonight I unintentionally turned my son into a skinhead.

I wish I were exaggerating.

This actually started a couple of weeks ago when I (once again) grew tired of trying to let his pencil straight hair grow out into anything stylish or remotely appealing. Because when Luke's hair grows out...it grows out. As in "doesn't bend, curl, or otherwise conform to the shape of his skull whatsoever." Finally at about two inches long it starts to weigh itself down and lay flat...in some parts. The other parts (like the crown of his head) poof up like he's got his fingers stuck in an outlet.

So I cut it. I got out my trusty electric clippers and gave him the old military high-and-tight...which, roughly translated into civilian terms, means short on the sides and slightly less short on top. It's my personal specialty. Sounds easy enough, but poor Luke has a rather oddly shaped head (with hills and valleys where you least expect them) so when I try to do my standard high-and-tight, he ends up looking like Sloth from The Goonies.

So I improvise, trying to accentuate the good and hide the...not-so-good. A tall order, when the child starts crying hysterically and spasming on the floor at the first sight of the little black clipper case. I feel like a soldier running across a battlefield when I buzz him...leaping the blade over the valleys while staying low on the hills...all while dodging to the right or left as his head turns, trying to keep from gouging something permanent across his scalp.

Truly, it's an art form.

And something I had mastered for over four years until I somehow lost a few of the more crucial "guards" for my clippers. The guards are organized by size and control how short the blade cuts. Their pointy, comb-like prongs are also good for torturing young boys; accidentally poking and scraping against their scalp when they jerk and twist away from Mommy. But that's more of a fringe benefit, or "collateral damage" as I prefer to call it....whilst twisting my mustache and laughing maniacally.

So when you lose a guard, you lose that size completely...for all eternity. And if you want to blend in, say, a size 4 on top with a size 1 on the sides (and you don't actually have size 1...or 2, or 3) you're left with using a size 0.5, the smallest one available without using the bare blade. And since 0.5 and 4 are distant cousins, twice removed, you're left with a boy that has a line of demarcation around his head you can spot from several hundred yards away.

So that's what I've spent the last couple of weeks staring at. That stupid line.

No one noticed it but me, I'm sure of that. But I swear it's all I noticed. The uneven spots. The unnatural ridge of long hair meeting short. Those random, leftover hairs that the clippers missed which are now twice as long as the rest.

It was torture.

So tonight I thought I'd go a little shorter on top so the blending would be nicer and those strays would be cut down. I managed to locate the #2 blade, which is shorter than I've ever gone on top, but beggars can't be choosers. And perfectionists can't be bothered with trivial things like aesthetics. (Straight lines and symmetry? Crucial! Beauty and good taste? Secondary.)

It wasn't until I was finished buzzing and looked closely to see deep, uneven lines cut into his his hair (think: corn field vs. checker board) that I realized I hadn't found the #2 at all. I'd grabbed one of the stupid diagonal guards that are short on one side and longer on the other. (I have yet to determine the purpose of these guards, except to create a bizarre series of intertwining staircase patterns that M.C. Escher would be jealous of...but for some reason it never occurred to me to throw them away.)

So of course, I had to fix it. The shortest part of the diagonal blade was at least a 2...which I didn't have. Nor did I have a 1. So what did I do?

I buzzed him with the 0.5 all over, quite naturally. And did I do all of this in one sitting? Of course not, don't be silly! No, I cut it a little bit....gave him a bath to wash it off. Then stared at it a while before dragging him back into the bathroom to cut some more and give him another quick bath.

I think I even took him back a third time to clip that unruly cowlick.

Of course, to keep him from getting completely hysterical during what was surely a textbook case of child-abuse, I had to promise him a large bowl of chocolate ice cream afterwards.

So here's my boy. With hair so short he might just as well be bald, and chocolate all over his face and the front of his clean jammies.


Now all the poor child needs is a bad attitude and a swastika tattoo before the transformation to Neo-Nazi will be complete. Sadly, he's already halfway there....but there's nothing I can do about that now.

Not until we can afford the tattoo removal.


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Update #1 (1-28-10): Chris came home today and declared our son a cancer patient. I, of course, found that to be in poor taste (and slightly disturbing) so I immediately re-classified him as a P.O.W.

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Update #2 (2-02-10): This is Luke nearly a week later. Notice the barely perceptible regrowth that only seems to highlight his obscenely lumpy noggin.



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