At my insistence, and with only gentle reluctance from Jordan, we took Patrick to my regular barber on Saturday for his first haircut. The resulting experience was part comedy, part tragedy. I think Jordan and I both agreed it wasn’t the scene we had imagined and hoped for, but the result might actually be more funny. This was due to the old guy who cut Patrick’s hair.

We should say up front that Patrick at 6 months old was a handful. He was pretty good at first, but once the hair started getting in his eyes, he wouldn’t stop squirming and crying. Still, 80-something dude cutting Patrick’s hair was definitely part of the problem.

His hands were steady enough. But Jordan had been clear in her instructions. We were here to deal with Patrick’s mullet. Trimming the back and sides were our top priority.

But Old Dude Barber (or, if you like, ODB) started with the top and didn’t really stop. He just. kept. cutting. the. top.

“Hey, his mom wants you to get the back of his hair,” said the lady barber next to us. She was trying to be helpful. But this dude just kept cutting the top.

“Tell you what I did with my boy when he was young,” said ODB.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Just put his head between my knees. Held him there until he stopped squirming, and then buzzed him until he was red.”

“Ah,” I said.

Jordan asked again. “The hair is getting in his eyes. Can you start on the back?” He started cutting elsewhere, but it was not the back. Poor Patrick’s cries are getting louder.

“His mom wants you to cut the back,” lady barber said again.

“You know what I did first time I cut my boy’s hair?” ODB asked again. “Put his head between my knees and gave him a burr. His momma didn’t like that. ‘It’ll grow back,’ I told her.”

At this point Jordan shoots me a look of utter frustration. Patrick continues to squirm and cry. And ODB continues to cut everywhere but where we’ve asked him to cut.

“Can we just stop?” Jordan asks, half protesting to me, but definitely loud enough for ODB to hear. Finally, he starts moving his scissors to the back.

“You know how I cut my boy’s hair when he was little? Just put his head between…”

Oh, no. He was back to cutting the top of Patrick’s head. Patrick is crying quite loudly. Everyone is looking. Patrick’s mom is upset.

“Okay,” Jordan said. “We’re done. We’re done. Can you stop? We’re done.”

Jordan got up from the chair and looked at me. She was very upset. ODB had ignored her the whole time, and had been fixated on one part of Patrick’s head. Which was the part we basically told him to ignore. “I don’t know who is more upset,” she said. “Me or Patrick.”

At least Patrick had stopped crying. Jordan finally went out to the car, and the manager told her the next cut was on the house (uh, probably not). Evidently, all the other barbers were well aware of how bad ODB was, and how loud Patrick was. Lot of tension in the room

As Jordan left, I sat down to get my hair cut. That’s right, I put my own hair in the hands of ODB. He started cutting my hair, and I noticed he wasn’t that awful. He was a bit slow, though. About a minute in, I realized just how slow he was.

“You know what I did first time I cut my boy’s hair? Put his head between my knees and gave him a burr. His momma didn’t like that. ‘It’ll grow back,’ I told her.”

He told me this story 3 more times in the 25 minutes he took to cut my hair. He was slow because he kept returning to parts of my hair he had already cut. He skipped around a lot, too.  I finally decided that ODB has Alzheimer’s or perhaps another form of dementia. If true, it would explain a lot.

But he gave me a great haircut.

Sure, with Patrick he missed a few spots.

But after Jordan cut off a few stray bits, it ended up looking pretty good.

And really, with Patrick screaming and crying his eyes out, we probably overreacted. On the way home Jordan talked with her mom and sister, and she tried to explain how bad it was. But she ended up convincing herself it was kind of funny. It wasn’t as awful as it had felt in the moment. It just wasn’t the way we imagined Patrick’s first haircut.

I think parenthood will frequently be like that. A whole lot of looking forward to things that don’t turn out liked you’d planned or hoped. But then things still end up being pretty good. Or maybe even better.

Full set available on Flickr.