The Haircut Observation

So I got my hair cut a few days ago.   

 

The average amount of time to elapse between my seeing someone I know and that person commenting something along the lines of “Hey, you got a haircut”:  10 seconds

 

The amount of time it took my wife Andrea to notice I had a haircut: 4 hours, 52 minutes. 

 

Here’s the thing with me and haircuts: I don’t get one as often as I probably should. I tend to let weeks or months go by without getting a haircut. I’m walking around with a shaggy mane that wouldn’t look out of place if I was a reefer smoking hippy from 1973. I actually once went over a year without getting a haircut and I really cannot explain why that is. Maybe I’m getting older and I’m trying to hang on to some vestige of youth? Or maybe short hair makes me self-conscious about the shape of my head? I have no idea.  

 

The thing is, when I finally do get a haircut, it marks a fairly dramatic change to my appearance. So for most people, it takes only a few seconds to notice I’ve had one. 

 

For most people but not everyone. Not my wife.  

 

Anyway, Friday afternoon, my daughter Randie and I went out to get our hair cut. I was relieved to get it done. The hot weather we’ve been having lately does not line up well with a long, shaggy ‘do.  

 

Andrea met us at home at 5:30. We went out to eat where she sat directly across the table from me. Randie tried every non-verbal trick she could to get Andrea to notice her hair. It didn’t work. My reaching up to my head to run my fingers through hair that wasn’t there did not elicit any response either.

 

At around 10:22, Randie had lost patience with her mother’s obliviousness and blurted out, “Aren’t you going to say anything about my hair?” Andrea blinked a few times, carefully processing information and then replied, “Hey, you got your haircut!” 

 

Andrea turned to me to see if I had noticed Randie’s hair as well. Then she blinked a few times, carefully processing information and then replied, “Hey, you got your haircut too!” 

 

4 hours, 52 minutes is not Andrea’s record for not noticing I’ve had a haircut. The record is two weeks.

 

Really.  Two whole weeks once elapsed between my haircut and her noticing said haircut. Again, if I got haircuts more often, I would understand it. But when a person goes from Conan the Barbarian hair to Lex Luthor’s head, one might expect a more immediate reaction.

 

And yes, I do too notice when Andrea gets a haircut.