<\/p>\n

When I moved back to Oklahoma from Spokane in 1998, I started getting my hair cut at Headhunters Barbershop, located in Yukon. The two men who owned the place were retired veterans, and during most visits, at 30 years old, I was the youngest guy in the room. The guys would talk to customers and each other about the news, the weather, and whatever else was on their minds. Mason had his first haircut there. I got haircuts there every other month for five years until one of the owners passed away and the other retired. If they hadn’t closed I’d still be getting my hair cut there today.<\/p>\n

The closure of Headhunters in the early 2000s sent me in search of a new place. I found one, an Asian-owned salon in Bethany, that was never crowded and had the cheapest prices in town. Most of her customers were Asian, or women, or both, but that didn’t bother me. Back when everyone else was charging $15 for a decent haircut, she charged $10. That was enough to keep me coming back.<\/p>\n

Over the years I’ve shared many stories — some slightly embellished, most absolutely true — about the love\/hate relationship I have with this woman. It is 100% true that she once called me a “shaggy dog” when I waited a little to long between appointments, and she absolutely described Chinese buffets as “garbage food we serve to Americans.” Most of her comments were made jokingly. Most. <\/p>\n

When the same person’s been cutting your hair for over fifteen years, you can’t help but get to know one another, at least a little bit. We talked about about kids graduating high school and going off to college. We had also both vacationed on cruises, and shared stories about that. She also kept me up to date in regards to her husband’s health — he suffered a stroke near the beginning of the pandemic, which made visiting him difficult. Also, I will never forget the time I visited her salon while wearing a mask and asked how business was going, only to have her break down in tears as she shared stories of how angry and mean some of her customers had been when asked to wear a mask before entering. (Oklahoma City made wearing a mask inside barbershops and salons mandatory and she could have been fined for not complying.) <\/p>\n

I’m not a person who loves change, so when the salon closed down and reopened five miles further away, instead of looking for a new place, I followed them. Rent was higher at the new place, and those $10 haircuts which had risen to $12 were now $15. Later, a $3 fee was added for paying by credit card. A couple of years ago the price was raised to $18, and the last time I visited they were $20, which pushed me over the edge and made me consider looking for a new place. <\/p>\n

I didn’t actually have to look hard. During my drive between home and the salon, I pass four or five other places, all of which are cheaper. Again, I enjoy the lack of conflict that comes from going to the same place, sitting in the same chair, and getting the same haircut from the same person… but the allure of paying less for the same haircut closer to home was too strong.<\/p>\n

Recently, just a couple of minutes from my home, they opened a Great Clips — conveniently located in the same parking lot as the Old School Bagel Cafe. It’s a five minute drive vs. 25 minutes, and cheaper. I had to try it.<\/p>\n

The instructions for my haircut are not difficult: number one on the sides, two finger-length on the top, and blend the sides. It’s one of the first haircuts a men’s stylist learns, and most prison barbers can do it in their sleep. When I built up the courage to visit Great Clips, I had concerns that the perky, rainbow-headed and Converse-wearing woman would be able to pull off such a classic cut. I was wrong, and pleasantly surprised with the result. In about ten minutes she had buzzed and cut everything I wanted, leaving an embarrassingly gray pile of hair in the floor beneath me. <\/p>\n

When I went to pay, I found two more surprises. One, Great Clips stores how you like your haircut in their system. When you walk in they look it up and that’s that. Second, because this is a new location, my haircut was only $5. Even when they’re not on sale, haircuts are $5 cheaper than my old place.<\/p>\n

Did I just refer to the place I’ve been going to for 15 years as “my old place”? I think I did.<\/p>\n

I always feel a little guilt when choosing a chain over a locally owned business, but paying less for a haircut closer to home kind of makes sense. At the new place, I could easily get my hair cut during my 30 minute lunch break, something that was impossible with the old place. Maybe buying a bagel from the locally-owned bagel store next door afterwards will make me feel better about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I moved back to Oklahoma from Spokane in 1998, I started getting my hair cut at Headhunters Barbershop, located in Yukon. The two men who owned the place were retired veterans, and during most visits, at 30 years old, I was the youngest guy in the room. The guys would talk to customers and each other about the news, the weather, and whatever else was on their minds. Mason had his first haircut there. I got haircuts there every other month for five years until one of the owners passed away and the other retired. If they hadn’t closed… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13369"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13373,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369\/revisions\/13373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}