HEAD PETTING.

This morning I stopped at a barbershop in my new neighborhood. I was in need of a haircut, and since I don't require anything fancy, I like your classic-type barbershop. Sel's seemed to fit the bill--old fashioned chairs, faux wood walls decorated with odd pictures, worn linoleum floors, and an old Italian man who speaks broken English and has that perma-coffee-and-cigarette odor.

So everything seemed to be in order. Then the haircut began. First, Sel cuts hair dry. He doesn't wet you down at all. So your hair doesn't so much fall to the floor as it does blow everywhere and get in your ears. But that was of little concern.

The strange thing was that as part of the haircut, Sel pets your head. He mats down the hair every few snips to see how it's turning out. Which is weird, but not the weirdest. The weirdest part takes place when he pets down the hair in the front and doesn't stop where the hair stops. He pets right down onto your face.

The first few pets made me feel uncomfortable. But at that point, I was in the middle of a haircut and Sel was armed with scissors. I wasn't about to ask him to stop or bring up the strangeness of the face petting. So I let him finish. Then about six or seven pets in, I sort of started to like it. It was soothing.

Now I'm confused.

I don't think I can go back to Sel, but now I sit at work, petting my face all day long. Plus, the haircut kind of sucks.