Remember in school science classes how they beat into you how important units are? Like you cant add inches and centimeters together, you have to convert one of them to the other first. I ran into this issue in a couple of ways this morning. I got up this morning ready to work my first official day from home, and when I looked in the mirror, I was a little frustrated that I didn't get a haircut before the ban on barbershops being open. I was already easily a month overdue for a haircut, and going another month didn't sound very appealing.
I figured with all the social distancing, I'm not going to see anyone in a professional environment for at least month, so what the hell I'll just trim it myself. Usually, when I go to the barbers, I tell them to do a four around the sides and back and then as short as possible on top without it sticking up. I figured I would take my trimmers and set them to 6, and just do everything the same. It will grow out in time anyway, right? Now, remember my comment about units? I am not sure what a number 4 is in the haircutting world, but one thing I can guarantee you now is that it is not millimeters.
In my own defense, this was first thing in the morning, and I hadn't had a cup of coffee yet, so rational thought was not part of the equation. A couple of simple estimations in my head would have helped me prevent the subsequent error. I mean 6mm is just a little over half a centimeter, and a centimeter is a little less than half an inch right? In other words, 6mm is really fucking short.
So I took my beard trimmer set at 6mm and again not thinking clearly I didn't try doing a small test, no I do a full swipe up the side of my head. The really funny thing is that I was looking in the mirror, so when I say, you should have seen the look on my face, that's because I was able to see it quite clearly at this point. All of a sudden I was wide awake, and all the calculations and conversions I have mentioned flooded my brain in parallel. Of course, once you have a big stripe of almost bald head staring at you in the mirror, you realize that you are totally committed. I proceeded to trim the rest of my head down to match.
Now vanity isn't really my thing. I know nothing of fashion or style, and I am definitely not a sexy man, but I am kind of glad that I will be working from home for a while. When Forrest came home from work he kind of looked at me funny and asked if I got a haircut, when I started to explain, he couldn't even let me finish before he started laughing uncontrollably for what I think was just a little too long. I think he almost died from lack of oxygen. Then he pulled out his camera and started taking pictures, It turns out, it looks worse in the back which makes sense since I can see that side at all.
I definitely won't have to worry about a haircut for a while, and it is probably better to screw it up now than right before going back to work.
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