Shaving Heads in The New Reality

Ever since I first realized my sons had no intentions of combing their hair, I’ve been giving them haircuts at home. The philosophy was “if you don’t care enough to take care of it, I’m not spending money on hair salons for you”. Once a month, they each had to sit under the mercy of the Wahl’s home-barber hairclippers. In the early years, I could tell where each son’s hair was in the pile of clippings: little Joe’s honey blonde locks, Ryan’s milk chocolate strands and Chris’ dark chocolate tresses. Now, they all have dark chocolate covered heads, but they still come to me for their haircuts. Even Chris will often come across town to me rather than pay $20 to a professional.

My husband Ernie has avoided my clippers up until now. This week, in desperation, he came to me asking that I do something about his overgrown mane.

As I draped the cape around him, he informed me “usually I get it longer on top and short on the sides and she usually…”

I cut him off mid-sentence. “You’ll get what you get and be thankful for it.”

He got the haircut: a standard 7/8-inch buzz over every inch of his scalp. Whether he was thankful for it, I may never know. Once the cutting was over, he headed upstairs to shower off the stray clippings and I called my next victim …uh, customer, to the stool.

It’s kind of weird the things we are now “settling” for during this pandemic: we stand in line outside the grocery store, at acceptable social distance, masks over our faces, waiting for shoppers to exit so we may enter. Friday night date nights of dinner and a movie are now takeout pizza in front of the TV. Offices have moved from office buildings to spare bedrooms.

Our son Joe finished up his first year of college on-line. Instead of teaching a driver’s ed class, Ernie is finding YouTube videos to assign special ed students to augment their learning. And Ryan is still unemployed, as is a large number of fellow Americans.

Man, I miss the old reality. I once complained to Ernie that I just want to sit in a restaurant again.

“Well,” he suggested, “we can order take-out and eat it in their parking lot.”

I stared at him, and then remember this was the same man who proposed to me during a commercial break of his favorite TV show, Star Trek Next Generation. And now – 28 years later – I’m realizing I can’t really expect him to change at this point. I knew he was like this when I agreed to marry him.

And together, we are getting through his pandemic. Ernie and I are both fortunate to still receive paychecks. We have a good home and are in lock-down with two sons who love us. None of our family is sick at this time, so we are fortunate and blessed indeed.

I have no idea how this is all going to end. I only know the new normal will not be the normal of the past. But I really can’t say I’m worried. God has taken us through a lot, and I’m sure this virus isn’t going to stop that.

I heard that 365 times the bible tells us not to worry. That’s once for each day of the year. If God says something that many times, I think he’s serious about it.

So, don’t worry, people. God’s got this.