Haircut Day

Thursday was haircut day for Gene. I cut his hair. He cuts mine, too, but we’ll get to that later. This started the first year we had 6 months off. We were camping in a tent that year and traveling in our Honda van. That year was a real experiment for us to see if we really liked being on the road for an extended period of time as well as seeing if the semi-retired budget would work. Not working is real incentive for cutting expenses and we looked at every dime we spent to see if we could make adjustments. One item that was ultimately eliminated was the regular 6-week haircut.

Off to Wal-mart we went to purchase our very own hair clippers. The first set we bought included a short video—a complete barbering course in just 30 minutes with no hands-on experience required. I watched the video and it looked easy enough. Even if you don’t purchase the clipper set with the video, there are printed instructions for the “perfect” flat top and crew cut.

Before

It was difficult for me at first. Even though you may think you would like to come at your husband with a cutting instrument, it was hard to make that first move. It was pretty difficult for him to sit at the picnic table, waiting, knowing I could do some serious damage. He was very supportive, though, and we both knew that the world was not yet without professional barbers who would be happy to fix, and laugh at, whatever mess I made. We also found that a couple cocktails helped both of us.

One of the first haircuts was at Mesa Verde National Park. I don’t think it ever occurred to us that we might be camped at an area without electricity. We take electricity for granted but the National Park Service doesn’t and the campground at Mesa Verde is typical of most national park campgrounds—electricityless. This might not have been such an issue if we had remembered at the previous campsite with electricity to charge the clippers. But we hadn’t and it was past time for a haircut. The only place in the campground with electricity was the bathroom so we ventured over to the farthest one from the campers. We used the ladies side and cleaned up our little mess afterwards.

After

Since that first summer, I have cut Gene’s hair every 6 weeks or so (now without the aid of a cocktail) with the exception of one time. He felt he could spring for a professional cut for his daughter’s wedding. We figure that is a savings of $15 per cut every 6 weeks since 2003 less the cost of 2 sets of clippers at $30 each. That makes approximately $580!!

Gene has cut my hair a few times. So you see there is a reason why I leave my hair long and pull it back. After one of his cuts I usually have to tilt my head to one side or the other to give the illusion of an even cut.