I cut my hair today. Well, 'cut' is probably rather generous and implies more skill than I possess. I shaved my head, which requires no more skill than is needed to continually rub my scalp with electric clippers.
About every 6 weeks, have this twinge of guilt that maybe I shouldn't shave my own head. Seriously, I'm trying to live economically, trying to save money wherever I can, but by shaving my own head every 6 weeks, I'm only saving about 6 dollars...a year. And that's assuming I keep sporting this super-slick peach fuzz. Yeah, I know, 6 dollars a year is not a lot. But every little bit helps, and maybe it's more the principle than the bottom line, in this case.
Now here's where the guilt comes in: supporting small local businesses. When I hear the term "small local business", I usually think of the mom-and-pop coffee shop that my wife dreams of working at some day. Here in my corner of East Asia, small local business in the hair cutting business is this:
Yep, that's me getting a haircut sitting under 60 tons of concrete highways. Very high ways. These guys (and gals) come out in good weather, prop up a chair, hang a mirror, and throw a towel around the neck of anyone willing to spend 80 cents on a trim. No paying rent, no utilities, even the clean-up is left to the street sweepers.
It's not Vidal Sassoon. It's not even the Hair Cuttery. But for a guy like me, it gets the job done.
Some of these folks are amazing. You see the 80 year old man who has been doing this for 65 years, the middle-aged woman who did it for a career change, or the young guy just starting out. The young guy down the road from my old apartment is my favorite. I saw him give an eyebrow trim (yes, you read that right) to a VERY old man, then walk him back to his apartment. Then while my hair was getting cut (and boy is it fun watching them try to figure out what to do with curly hair!), he was setting up a weekly house call with an elderly lady who wanted him to give a haircut to her 90+ year-old father. I want to keep these people in business.
So what do I do? I think what I'm leaning towards is doing my own buzz cuts in the summer, and letting them wrestle with the curls the rest of the year. So what if I only save $4 a year? There's a bigger principle at stake.
