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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Okay, let’s see if I can make the first time on stage for a new comic sound entertaining in the slightest. Tough task here. Tough, indeed.
So, first I should set the ‘offstage stage’, so to speak. For those of you who haven’t been paying close attention — or who have a really short memory — I made my comic debut last night, along with six other students in the ‘Standup Comedy 101’ class I’ve been taking. The club we were at in Cambridge (Massachusetts) has a habit of allowing graduates of our class to get their feet wet every year.
(Or, as they so sweetly put it on the programs, they regularly ‘sacrifice virgins’. Charming.)
Anyway, we ‘fresh meat’ sorts of folks were asked to show up a bit early on the night of our, um, ‘deflowering‘. (Oh my.) We all drew out of a hat to find out where in the lineup we’d be thrown to the lions. (Or the hookers, or whatever the hell you sacrifice virgins to — look, there’s only so much material I can milk out of one metaphor, all right?) I drew a ‘2’, which ended up meaning that I’d second overall — a veteran comic would go on first, and then me. Eek.
(Actually, they interspersed nearly a half-dozen ‘pros’ throughout our show, ending with the guy who taught our eight-week ‘How to Be Funny Like Me’ class. I suppose the seasoned standups were supposed to exert some kind of ‘hegemony of hilarity’ over us, raising us up to their lofty yuk-yuk levels. Maybe it worked, and maybe it didn’t; I was too busy trying not to wet my pants to bother with piddly details like that.)
So, the first guy went on, and — just like I was told to do — I made my way to one side of the stage to get ready for my entrance. That meant that I couldn’t actually see the comic onstage, and frankly, I didn’t hear much of his act, either. Something about monkeys at one point, I think, and he may have talked about his high school math teacher. Or maybe my mind was just wandering, back to my trig class taught by Mr. Peepers. I really couldn’t say. I don’t think that even makes any sense. Sorry.
Back to what really happened. (For the moment, at least.) The first guy wrapped up his set, and I went on. I was told to do five minutes, and not to go over. Apparently, the host/owner at the comedy bar gets upset when people go over their time slots. Fine — that’s good to know. So for a while, I considered preparing about seventy seconds worth of material — one setup, maybe a punch line or two, and a wave goodbye. But that seemed a little paranoid, so I beefed it up to just over four minutes. In practice, that is — in the mirror, it was four minutes. In the car, four minutes. In the shower… well, to be perfectly fair, I do tend to get rather distracted in the shower. Something about being naked and wet at the same time, I suppose. So in the shower, it might take eight minutes, or even ten. And on one notable Saturday, most of the afternoon. But we’re not here to talk about that. Let’s try and focus, shall we?
So, when I went up, I was told that there’d be a digital clock on the front of the stage that I could check, to make sure I wasn’t going over my time. Great. So I looked as I stepped onstage. The clock said: ‘|-:-L’. Seriously. Three-quarters of the little lines that make up the numbers were burnt out — I’d be better off trying to deduce the time by staring at the damned Matrix than this stupid clock. So, I took a deep breath, and said those four little words that I always try to remember in these situations, the ones that always calm and soothe me. You know the ones:
‘Oh, just fuck it.‘
Anyway, long story… uh, still long, really — I did the bits that I’d planned. And it went well, I thought. I didn’t stutter, or lose my voice, or forget any of my jokes. I didn’t even wet my pants! And I got some laughs… though honestly, it’s a bit hard to tell whether the audience was giggling with me, or at me.
(Seriously, when my crotch, Joe Camel, and the Elephant Man are all involved, it can be tough to put your finger on what exactly is amusing people. Or disgusting people, for that matter. I think my material may be like a loud fart in a crowded room, or a pile of baby poop — some people will get a kick out of it, others may be offended, and the rest will just try to get the hell out of range. I’m not sure what all of that means, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good.)
But I got through my set, and could then relax and watch the rest of the show, just like anybody else. Well, except that they don’t let the comics actually sit, of course. We’re not paying customers, after all, so we’ve got to stand in the back.
(So I guess I could watch the rest of the show like anybody else, as long as ‘anybody else’ is a bouncer, or a late arriver. Or maybe a pervert who just stands back there in his raincoat, trying to look down the waitresses’ shirts. Yeah… I miss grandpa.)
So, the rest of the comics, old and new, finished up, and we newbies headed downstairs for a celebratory beer with our respective entourages. I went to the club with my wife and a half-dozen or so of our friends.
(And got to meet the very cool Amber, who was nice enough to show up, and didn’t even throw any rotten fruit at me! And she even brought a friend. And her friend didn’t throw anything, either! How cool is that?) And my classmates were all there — there was the vagina poem lady, and the sensitive masculine guy, and Mister Naked, and the hermaphrodite attractor, and the sweaty male babysitter, and even the red bib dude. *shudder* Yeah, don’t ask about that last guy. I think he could have at least left out the part about it being a ‘true story’. *wibble*
So, it’s good to have the first show over with. My wife even taped me on our brandy-new, handy-dandy camcorder. I watched it a couple of times last night, scanning for awful, embarrassing, futile moments. And I gotta be honest — I really didn’t find anything to cringe over.
(At least until I tried to figure out how to transfer the video to my computer. That might take a bit more figurin’. And some cables. And a couple more IQ points. I’ll get there; don’t worry. If you want to see the train wreck that is my first foray into comedy, then by god, you shall be able to. Um, eventually. I’m workin’ on it, okay?)
So that’s my story — thanks to all who came out to see the de-virginizing, especially Amber, who took a big risk in coming out to see a near-total stranger, and GZ, who flew in all the way from Spain to watch.
(Yeah, yeah, he said that he was coming back last night anyway… still, I like to think that he ran back just for the event, then caught a redeye back to Barcelona last night. Sure, the lie will fall apart tomorrow night, when I see him again… or maybe I’ll make up something even more ridiculous to explain his presence. Dunno. Depends on how drunk I am at the time, most likely.)
Hopefully, this is the first in a long line of shows. Rotten-fruit-free shows, preferably. But shows is shows, right? So, in case anyone else out there is interested, I’ll let you know when I’m able to line up more gigs.
(Oooh, preview — the first, also with the other newly-deflowered folks from last night, will be on December 3rd in Dorchester, MA. I’ll post more details before the show… but this time, not the same day of the show.
(Thanks for the tip, Tanya.))
Of course, I don’t think I’ll be paid quite as handsomely at upcoming shows as I did for this one. The owner of the club wrote each of us a nifty one-dollar check from the club. He said he wanted to be able to say that we earned our ‘first dollar in comedy’ at his club. Cool. Now I just have to try to make sure it’s not my last. Woo!
Permalink | 7 Comments(Note to any regular readers out there:
…and by ‘regular readers’, I mean ‘people who read this blog from time to time’, not ‘plain old regular people who read this blog’. And I certainly don’t mean ‘readers who are regular’. How many times you go to the bathroom a day is no concern of mine, there, skippy. Big wall! Big wall!
Um, okay, then. Back to the note — for any regular readers out there:
If you’re interested in how the standup show — heretofore known as ‘my comic deflowering’ (charming, no?) — went, I’ll post a wrap-up on that a bit later today. Fear not — you’ll soon be ass-deep in the details of me making a jackass of myself on stage.
In the meantime, though, since I was too wiped out to post last night, I’m backdating this post to yesterday, so that there’s something other than my show announcement that counts as ‘entertainment’ for the day. At the moment, Sunday is lacking in both quantity and quality, and I just can’t bear to let that happen.
(I can’t promise to fix both problems, but we’ll see what happens. At least now you’ll have to read through a few hundred words to find out I couldn’t think of anything funny for the day. And that’s better than what was there before. Arguably, anyway.)
So, without further ado, here’s another ranty, rambling train wreck of a post about trivial crap that I’m probably making up from scratch, anyway.
Gee, it sounds so tasty when I put it like that, doesn’t it?)
(UPDATE: Um, note to pretty much everybody… I guess it helps to actually backdate the frigging post when I go to all the trouble of writing six paragraphs about how I’m going to do so, huh? You know, instead of letting the post lounge around all day with the real datestamp on it… dudes, I am such a tool sometimes…)
I have to wonder sometimes whether I’m just out of touch with what the rest of the world is up to. Maybe I’m tragically uncool, or out of the loop, or just plain old; I really can’t say. All I know is that I see a lot of trends out there that I just can’t fathom — people doing things, caring about things — that just make no damned sense to me.
Take collect calling, for instance. Recently, I saw a nice little rant on Lara’s blog about how the various collect calling commercials — and John Stamos’ in particular — are annoying the shit out of her. And it’s true — from sickeningly-sweet Stamos’ spots to the ads with that uppity-smug platinum-blonde ‘angel’, all the way to the murder-suicide-inducing Carrot Top commercials, these clips are some of the worst things on television.
(This side of UPN, anyway.)
But the more fundamental thing that bothers me more about these spots is this: why, for the love of phone-sex operators, do we need all these collect-call companies, anyway? And are enough people making that many collect calls to warrant all these fricking choices and advertising dollars? Who’s making all these fricking calls? Poor college kids phoning home for cash? Homeless dudes checking on the day’s lottery numbers? Carrot Top, going through the list of escort services on his Rolodex? Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I made or received a collect call. Do people really make them any more?
And even if they do… is it really fricking necessary to have thirty different collect-call systems, each with a dizzying array of phone numbers and plan options?
‘Try 1-800-COLLECT. It’s cheap and easy. Just one dollar for up to twenty minutes, then ten cents a minute after that.‘
‘No, no, go with 10-10-987. What could be simpler? It’s twelve cents to connect, then four cents a minute for the first ten minutes, and only seven cents after that.‘
‘Don’t be a dumbass — 1-800-CALL-ATT is better, and even a monkey can use it. It’s just sixty cents for the first nine minutes, then six-and-a-half cents per forty-eight seconds after that.‘
‘Forget those guys — we know of lobotomized weasels that can use 10-10-220, and it’s cheapest of all. You pay just fourteen point six cents to connect, and then it’s just the square-root-of-pi cents per thousandth-of-an-hour after that.‘
Who the hell are these people kidding, anyway? ‘Easy to use’? ‘Simple’? ‘Convenient’? You need a frigging degree in differential equations and a Babylonian abacus troop to compare the goddamned rates.
(No, I don’t know what a ‘Babylonian abacus troop’ would look like, or even whether Babylonians would be more proficient with abaci than anyone else. For all I know, the Sumerian abacus squad would kick their ass. Look, I told you I was making this shit up as I went along, didn’t I? I don’t know what the hell you expect from me here.)
Even if you know you’re gonna talk for six and a half minutes per call — which you don’t, of course — you’d have to spend six hours and a thousand brain cells plotting out a line graph to figure out which eleven-digit ‘convenient and easy’ code to prefix your number with. Honestly, I just don’t frigging understand.
While we’re on the subject, more or less, I’m sort of perplexed about cell phones, too. Not having a cell phone, or using a cell phone — I’ve got one, and I’ve been known to use it from time to time… usually when I’m driving, or peeing, or in the shower. So I can see how useful cell phones can be.
But it’s the bells and whistles people add onto their phones that I don’t get. Ring tones, for instance. I know people that change the sound of their phone every fricking week, every new ringtone more teeth-gnashingly annoying than the last. Today, it might be ‘Whistle While You Work‘.
(Grrrr.)
Tomorrow, ‘It’s a Small World, After All‘.
(Dude. C’mon — dude!)
Then, that goddamned ‘I Like You, You Like Me‘ Barney song.
(Come here, you dickhead… no jury will convict me for what I’m about to do.)
Now, just to conciliate with you ring-freaks, I will admit that my ringtone is Sousa’s Liberty Bell March, better known (by some of us) as the opening theme of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. So I’m not entirely without guilt in this matter, either.
But — and this is a big, Rosie O’Donnell-sized ‘but‘ — I say this in my defense: for one thing, I keep my phone on ‘vibrate’ most of the time. And not just because it feels good in my pocket, either.
(It does, but that’s not why I do it.)
Secondly, that ringtone came with the phone as one of the options. I didn’t spend fourteen hours online looking for it, wading through clips of fart noises and crappy Muzaked pop songs until I found it.
And third, I set the damned ringtone the day I got the phone, and that’s what it’s been set to ever since. I don’t go changing the stupid ring like it’s a frigging mood phone or something. You can’t tell I’m sad because the phone tinkles out ‘Send in the Clowns‘, or know that I’m pissed because you hear the theme from ‘Halloween‘ when someone calls me. It doesn’t work like that.
So, while I do have a custom ring, I’m not part of what I consider the problem. I’ve got plenty of other ways to waste my time — current blog in point — without combing through the internet to find a way to make my phone yell out ‘Don’t have a cow, man‘ over and over when I get a call. Who are these frigging people, anyway?
Games for cell phones make me scratch my head, too — though I have to admit, so do GameBoys and the like. Not because I’m not a ‘gamer’ — oh, I game, dude. I game. At the same time, I’m not one of those ‘game snobs’ you see sometimes — young, pimply-faced kids with the latest souped-up console system, or with PCs chock full of video cards and forty-three gigs of RAM, with rings of computers set up to multicast Quake Arena or Unreal Tournament or whatever the kick-ass kill-’em-all game du jour happens to be.
I’ll play a lot of those games — and others, too — but I do it on my crappy little home office PC, and that’s just fine. I don’t have to see every single spatter of blood that comes out of my character’s head when I wander into a minefield, or a guard post, or I slip and fall on the virtual sidewalk. Again. I buy my games nice and late — and therefore cheap — and then play ’em slowly, so I never catch up. I’m perpetually two or three years behind, and the games still kick ass, so I’m just tickled pink.
But even I can’t play those phone games. They’re not ‘soooo 2001‘; they’re more like, ‘eek! Pong!‘ The screens are tiny, the keypads cramped, and the graphics laughable. Hmmm. Gee, you’d almost think that cell phones weren’t actually built to play games on! Who’da thunk it?
(And isn’t that what Palm Pilots are for? At least there, you can see what the hell you’re doing and tap right on the screen with that little plastic pencil thingy.)
Anyway, like I said, maybe I’m just out of touch. All the kids seem to like this shit, and I’m sure they’ll continue to play their little crappy micro-games, and download the ‘Freinds‘ theme song onto their phones (Double grrrrr!), and use them to punch out the forty-eight digits now needed to make a collect call. And I’ll still be in the dark. Well, that’s all right. I’m old, and uncool — I don’t care. I’ll just keep playing my PC games from last century, and paying for the calls I make. And I’ll always get a grin on my face when my phone rings.
Of course, that’s usually because it’s on vibrate. Hey, I love Monty Python, people, but some things are more important than having a cool ringtone. And I think a nice little ‘rumble in the undies’ now and then qualifies. Don’t you?
Permalink | 2 CommentsHey, all — I know it’s last-minute, but I thought (thanks to gentle prodding and encouragement from Amber of Learn to Speak Ebenese) that I’d post the details of my upcoming comedy debut. Upcoming, as in… well, tonight.
(Hey, I said it was ‘last-minute’. I’m not screwing around here.)
Anyway, for those of you in the Boston area who are interested in a little Sunday-night hilarity, here’s the scoop:
At 8pm tonight, eight of us comic newbies are going to strut our stuff — and wave our rubber chickens — onstage at the Comedy Studio, located at 1532 Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square, Cambridge (on the third floor, above the Hong Kong restaurant). We each get a five-minute set, and I think there are a couple of ‘pros’ on the menu, as well.
(That’s ‘pro’ as in ‘more seasoned comedian’, by the way, not ‘hooker’. I’m not saying that there won’t be hookers there, necessarily; I just don’t think they’ll be on stage. But I’ve been wrong before — Harvard Square can be pretty liberal about such things, you know.)
Anyway, if you’ve got a couple of hours to spare, and want to see me — and seven of my new friends — make complete asses of ourselves on stage, then be sure to stop by. The doors open at 7:30; I recommend for your sake that you get there early. And for my sake, I recommend that you start ordering the scorpion bowls as soon as you get in the door. There’s no better comedy audience than a liquored-up comedy audience.
So, that’s my announcement. I’ll be back later with your regularly-scheduled drivel for the day. Assuming I’m not buried under a stinking mound of rotting fruit and eggs onstage, that is. If it goes that badly, I might just curl up with a scorpion bowl myself, and take a night off. I know when I’m not wanted. Wish me luck!
Permalink | 2 CommentsSo, I’ve mentioned a couple of (dozen) times recently that I’ll be delivering my very most firstest official standup comedy set tomorrow night.
(I decided that my grad school oral exams, while apparently just frigging hilarious to my committee, don’t count, so tomorrow night is my first. That’s only fair, I guess — the committee basically decided most of my answers didn’t ‘count’, either. The bastards.)
Anyway, because of the crushing, unbearable pressure much-appreciated enthusiastic queries by Lara about the show, I made a decision today. I made a decision, and I made a purchase.
Yes, folks, I now own a digital camcorder. Hide the women and watermelons, people, I’ve got full image-capture capabilities. Video, still pictures, you name it. Who knows what you might see within these pages in the coming weeks — the mystery meat in the back of the fridge, one of my tres artistic toothpaste sculptures, maybe even the dog in her Little Bo Peep outfit.
(Though you probably won’t see my wife in her Bo Peep getup — I’m not allowed to tape that sort of thing. She gets so shy when it comes to the Mother Goose stuff.)
But the more perspicacious of you will deduce that I really bought the thing to tape my standup sets. I’m hoping to line up some more shows, so I have to know what works, and what doesn’t.
(And more importantly, figure out which people in the audience are throwing rotten fruit and eggs. ‘Cause if I catch them, and I know them, they are so getting their tires slashed, or their lawns pissed on. Or their tires pissed on, whatever’s fastest. I can’t afford to take too much time — I have a feeling I’ll have a lot of houses to get to.)
Anyway, if I can manage to figure out the camera, and the software, and the six hundred peripherals I’ll need to get the show taped and converted to something web-accessible, I’ll post it up for any interested parties to check out. If you like it, you’ve got Lara at 75 Degrees and Raining to thank, for getting my ass in gear to buy a new toy. And if you don’t… well, it’ll be my material, so you should probably blame me.
(But just between us, you can still go take it out on Lara — hey, if I hadn’t bought a camera, you’d have never been able to watch the crap. Go get her!)
Speaking of the camcorder, I’m now convinced — and maybe you guys are way ahead of me on this one — that the employees at Best Buy get a big fat bunch of nothing unless they sell you an extended warranty on something. I’ve been in there three or four times in the past year or so, and it’s always the same damned thing — the little weiner or weinerette starts out all nice and friendly. Downright perky, even. Sure, they often don’t actually know anything, but they try to stay upbeat while they shrug and stutter and shake their heads. They’re like little bobblehead dolls, useless and wobbly and idiot-grinning.
Then, of course, if you decide to actually buy the doodad you’re looking at, the kid goes nuts. Suddenly, this ignorant, clueless customer assistant reveals him- or herself to be an idiot savant, because they know absolutely everything about the extended warranty on the product. Terms, dates, benefits, cost per annum — you name it. In a flash, this pimply-faced boob before you is transformed from drooling, mindless drone to Professor Warranty, spewing forth everything you could ever want to know — and much, much, much more — about the minutae of the various options.
Then, when you do the smart thing and don’t take the warranty, they clam up like a jilted lover, and treat you like a fresh pile of steaming dog flop. Suddenly, you’re beneath contempt, simply because you’re willing to take the risk of a blown tube or a frazzled circuit into your own hands. I swear, I think these people must get paid as a percentage of the warranties they foist onto people. They act like you’re taking food out of their damned mouths when you refuse the coverage, or you’ve just thrown their little brother down a well.
The transformations these people go through are immediate and complete — from slack-jawed idiot to blabbering expert to cold, spiteful enemy. It usually goes something like this:
Customer: Hi, can you help me with picking out a computer monitor?
Employee: Sure! Hey, I’d love to! Woo hoo!
Customer: Great. Would you recommend a CRT monitor or an LCD?
Employee: Uh… well… um, probably the LCD.
Customer: Oh, okay. And why is that?
Employee: Er — they’re bigger?
Customer: Don’t they both come in several sizes?
Employee: Oh. Uh, yeah. It’s brighter?
Customer: Brighter than…?
Employee: Um, the first one you mentioned?
Customer: The CRT, you mean?
Employee: Yeah, the CRD.
Customer: T. CRT.
Employee: Right, I knew that.
Customer: O…kay. Look, how about this monitor here? I saw a good review on this one. What can you tell me about it?
Employee: Well… let’s see — it’s a… 19 inch model. And it’s made by… um, OptiPlex, and…
Customer: Hey, you’re just reading that off the little card by the monitor!
Employee: No, I’m not.
Customer: Yes, you are. Here, look — I’ll cover it up. Now who makes this again?
Employee: Uh… OmniPox?
Customer: No.
Employee: ArchiePlex?
Customer: No.
Employee: ArcoPax? OxiClean? OctoPussy?
Customer: Look. Just forget it. I’ll trust the review. I’ll take this one. Just ring me up.
Employee: But wait! I’ve got to tell you about the extended warranty! We’ve got three levels — the two-year, the three-year, and the five-year. The five-year is the best; it covers hardware, cabling, screen scratches, and includes an option to have each pixel individually insured for the life of the monitor. All of our warranties cover fire damage, lightning strikes, pit bull manglings, and coffee stains. They range from just twenty-two dollars per month for the two-year plan to only seventeen dollars per month for the five-year warranty. So which plan should I put you down for?
Customer: Actually — none of them.
Employee: But… the protection… the insurance… the lightning. How could you not?
Customer: I just don’t want it, thanks.
Employee: Fine. Gimme your card.
Customer: Okay. Do you know about —
Employee: No. Sorry. Here, sign this.
Customer: Um, okay, but —
Employee: I’ve got other customers. Here’s your receipt. Good day.
Customer: I’ve just got one question about —
Employee: I said, ‘Good day‘. I’m leaving now. Don’t try to follow me.
So, anyway, I got out of the store today just the way I wanted — with the camera, and without the warranty. Now, we’ll see whether I can figure the damned thing out in time for tomorrow’s show.
(And whether I can keep my dog away from the thing, since I don’t have the benefit of the ‘pit bull mangling’ coverage — would that just serve me right?)
I’ll let you know how it goes, and if we’re all lucky — or unlucky, depending on your point of view — I’ll even have something to show you soon. We’ll just have to see.
Permalink | 2 CommentsHmmm. I don’t really know how I should feel about this. It’s really never come up before.
Before I go into detail, I want to mention that I’m a very low-maintenance kind of guy. I shower every morning, and wash my hair. Then I comb, throw on some deodorant, toss in my contacts, brush my teeth, and swish a bit of mouthwash. Hygenically speaking, that’s pretty much the normal routine.
(And always in that order, too. I learned the hard way that I’m rather easily confused early in the morning. It only takes a couple of days wearing toothpaste under your arms and combing your teeth to learn that you need a system. But at least you don’t have to worry about tartar buildup in your armpits. So you’ve got that going for you.)
Anyway, I don’t go in for a lot of the ‘cosmetic‘ treatments that seem to be all the rage these days. My daily routine is closer to Survivor than Queer Eye. No ‘hair product’, no ‘eau de cologne‘, no tweezing, no lotions, no muss, no fuss. Just the basics.
So. Back to my current problem. I got my hair cut on Thursday, just like I mentioned I was going to. Fine. My hair is nice and short, just the way I like it. That’s not the problem.
The problem is my eyebrows. Rather, my left eyebrow. See, during the haircut, the barber did a bit of shaping up there. Apparently, my eyebrows were ‘wild and unruly‘. Like a pack of hungry wolves, or shrieking teenyboppers at a Clay Aiken concert. So he trimmed my eyebrows. Trimmed them! I’d never heard of such a thing from a reputable, no-nonsense barber. Trimming eyebrows, indeed. What’s next, a bikini wax?
(Um, no, actually. I asked. He said he could do it, but we’d have to go in the back room. I passed.)
Anyway, he hopped in there with the scissors, and even a shaver type of thing, and trimmed my eyebrows. It’s at this point that I should probably mention that my barber is no spring chicken. Neither is he a summer duck, nor even an autumn turkey. I’m not sure exactly what sort of fowl he is, but I’ll tell you that he’s definitely in his ‘winter years’. There’s not a lot of tread left on the ol’ tires, and I’m not sure how well he can see these days. And of course, therein lies the problem.
See, it’s not so big a deal if he cuts a few hairs on my head a little too short.
(Assuming that he doesn’t actually draw blood, of course. I have my limits as to what sort of mistake I can forgive, and the line falls somewhere short of any error that causes a hemorrhaging head wound. Call me a hard-ass, if you want. That’s just the way I am.)
So, if he can’t see exactly what he’s doing during the haircut, that’s fine. I’m not all that picky. But the eyebrows are trickier, more delicate. Trimming them requires a light and careful touch, not to mention keen eyesight. Apparently, anyway, because my barber has neither, and now I have an eyebrow-and-a-half of problems.
The right one is fine — less ‘wild and bushy‘, I think, but otherwise, it looks pretty much the same. The left, though… oh, the left. It’s still there — I’m not gonna have to pencil any shit in there — but it’s noticably thinner now. It takes up about the same amount of space, but it’s sparser and barer now. It’s been pruned more than trimmed. I can almost feel my head leaning to the right, as the weight of those extra hairs over there pull me over. I’m lopsided, uneven. And I can’t stop rubbing my eyebrows, trying to decide how big a difference there is.
In other words, I’m now neurotic about my eyebrows. I have become the weepy, spritzing, over-chic fashion nut that I beheld and disdained. I’m just that close to going upstairs and finding little scissors, or tweezers, or even toenail clippers, and evening the damned things out. Ugh.
Let this be a lesson to you no-nonsense, just-the-facts sorts of guys (and girls) out there — I was once like you. I never rubbed things on, or scrubbed things off, or knew what the hell a ‘loofah’ was. Hell, I didn’t even dry my hair — I just combed it and forgot about it. But now… now that I actually give a damn about my eyebrows, of all the ridiculous things… well, shit, I don’t know. Can sculpting gel and exfoliating scrubs be far behind? Am I falling down that slippery slope into three-hour-long bathroom trips and constant mirror checks? Will my ‘personal appearance checklist’ soon include more than making sure that I’m booger-free and my fly is zipped? How much do I tip a manicurist, anyway? Bitches! Damn you, you uneven, hairy little monsters! Damn you — you did this to me!!
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