Once upon a time, in a far away land, a much more foolish version of myself dared to claim that he hated haircuts. His reasons were shallow, weak, and jinned up to fulfill his weekly column requirements. His tone was mocking, immature, and thorougly annoying. I am here today to say that that man is no more - no, before you stands (or rather, sits on a cheap chair in my basement while my kitten uses my leg as a scratching post and I watch Days of Heaven) the new and improved Andrew. The Andrew that LOVES hair cuts. You see, everything I said about them the first time still applies, but a hair cut was the greatest event of my day today, and I owe it all to the Gay Barber.
For all you damned homophobes let me explain something to you - I LOVE gay men. Feel free to take that out of context and enscribe it on my tombstone, but, just between you and I, allow me to explain. It's rude and possibly hateful of me, but I find almost all gay guys completely hilarious. They love talking, which I love and which most straight guys hate. They love looking good, which I love and which most straight guys hate. They love me, which I love and which most straight guys hate. They love women - they adore and worship women, they attract women like molasses attracts flies (supposedly, I've never seen molasses). If you are straight and don't have a gay friend, you are really missing out. There is no better opportunity to meet women, and no better way to make women like you. I live in the South, where it's normal for manly men to be racist, sexist, and homophobic. If a girl meets you through her gay friend, and finds out you're not gay, she will instantly love you and you will go up like 100 points in her book (I don't know how many points there are, or what this book is) just because you don't hate her gay friend. It's amazing how easily girls will fall deeply in love with you not because of anything good you do, but because you don't constantly shoot yourself in the foot. Most homophobia, let's face it, stems from the fact that straight guys think that all gay guys find them irresistably attractive and are plotting to rape them. I hate to break it to you, but you are all hideously ugly. Have you EVER heard of any straight guy being raped by a gay guy outside of prison?
So anyway the guy asks me how I want my hair cut, and I tell him, "I was hoping you'd tell me. I hate hair cuts. I only get my hair cut like once a year."
"When's the last time?" he asks.
"I don't know. I think I shaved my head like last June or something."
(Incredibly exasperated sigh and eye roll that only a gay man could pull off).
"Why do you hate hair cuts?"
"Because I'm trapped in a chair and can't move while people do something to me I have no control over and they try and make small talk and ask me what razor they should use. I didn't go to no damn cosmetology school." (I often try to talk with redneck grammar, as I find it funny, and don't want to accidentally exceed anyone's expectations). I explain a little bit about how I want my hair, ("Shorter, but not too short. Like yours, but not as short." He of course promptly cuts it about twice as short as his is.) and then we switch subjects to the fact that the salon got broken into three nights ago. The amazing thieves broke into the store next door through the ceiling, and then kicked through the wall to get into the salon and steal like the $100 that was in the register, managing to do over $2000 worth of damage.
The rest of my haircut is spent discussing how obviously dumb the thieves were, (he said, in his politcally correct fashion, "It looks like a retarded twelve year old robbed us") interspersed with him asking me if I live nearby, if I have any children, and how old I am. It was actually fun small talk for once though, and as I was the only customer at the moment the female stylist came over and we eavesdropped on the alarm salesman as he fed line after line of bullshit to the manager and we made fun of it. I told them, "I always tell myself that if I ever resort to a life of crime it's going to be some awesome Ocean's 11 style shit, not breaking into a Fantastic Sam's. But if I do I'm going to steal your $80 shampoo and sell it out of my trunk." They advised me on the best ways of breaking into their store, and which doors are the weakest and what not, in case I change my mind, and then I paid him, told him to make sure not to leave his tip in the store over night, and left.
You may be asking, "Why is this under hate?" Because my hair looks nothing like I attempted to request and is far shorter than his and when I told him I wasn't sure I liked it he told me I could come back and get it fixed for free. ARE THEY GOING TO MAKE IT LONGER?
HATE #2: CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
Osama bin Laden is dead. I will bet on this for any of you dumb conspiracy theorists that want to put your money where your incredibly large mouth is. I hate conspiracy theorists. There are some compelling arguments about JFK's assassination, and even about the Oklahoma City Bombing, but I don't believe in any of them. It isn't that I don't believe that people are evil, or that our governments are capable of great atrocities, or that nothing has ever been pulled off without the knowledge of the general public, but I just think people are too dumb to be successful. Think of how many people would have to be involved in your average conspiracy, and then never breathe a word about it to anyone else. If conspiracies were real, we'd have like seven unsuccessful ones for every successful one. Really, JFK and RFK were both killed by the government, or the mafia but there's never been any proof? Really, the American goverment bombed the Twin Towers and no plane actually crashed at the Pentagon or in Pennsylvania? Really, Osama bin Laden isn't dead? Really, we didn't land on the moon? Really, aliens crash landed in Roswell? Really, Elvis is still alive and living in a garbage dump in Barfield?
See folks, a conspiracy requires more than just saying, "It isn't true!" You need to show me something more true. You have to show me something with more facts, more motive, more likelihood of happening, and then account for all the reasons why we don't know the truth. Sometimes the facts are facts. Life is just that boring. When there were no WMDs discovered in Iraq it wasn't shocking, or an unveiled conspiracy - it was the opposite. There was no real reason to believe there were WMDs there to start with, and if conspiracies were as popular as the theorists seem to believe, you can bet someone would have buried some uranium or mustard gas out in the desert somewhere. Colin Powell wouldn't have come out a few years later and said that he mislead the American people, or whatever term he used, because we would all still be fooled. You know the celebrity that was most associated with 9/11 Truthers? Charlie Sheen. Look how that turned out a few years later, guys. I know everyone likes to think that they can somehow see the REAL facts, and that all the other sheeple are just too dumb, but really, especially in this, the age of Information, life is sometimes exactly what it seems.
HATE #1: COLLEGE PROFESSORS
So Clayton is apparently Georgia's excuse for a minor genius or something, and he earned Student of the Year at his college for whatever his degree is in. Being a loyal and thoroughly O'Dellicious brother, I skedaddled the hour and a half down the road to attend his award ceremony. They were also honoring a bunch of Teachers of the Year or something, and ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you that these people look exactly like the caricature a right-wing radio host would paint of a liberal academic. I make fun of rednecks, and right wing stereotypes all the time, but never let it be said that I'm not an equal opportunity offender. First of all, they're all very ugly. Their faces are too narrow, their foreheads too long, their teeth too British, and their skin weathered - not by exposure to the sun, but by never seeing it once. Their sense of humor is awful (the dean made the hilarious joke, "I'm going to go over these numbers that were given to me by the math department. I hope I can trust them!" Everyone laughs, me more loudly than the rest because I'm so smarmy and ironic. "Because these are numbers, and it is the math department!" she continues. I don't really see why you need to explain the joke by repeating it after everyone laughs, but I'm not the dean of a college). On top of that, a lot of the guys are wearing bow ties. Listen guys, only people in tuxedos and clowns wear bow ties, and you sure as hell weren't wearing tuxedos. One little spaz was running around in a bow tie taking pictures and somehow managing to keep his glasses balanced on his pointy head. After the ceremony was over I was looking at a series of framed pictures of speakers who had (believe it or not) spoken at the college and one was Laura Bush. I called my ten year old brother over and asked, "Do you know who this is?" Mr. Spaz quickly gallops (in the same way a frail horse skeleton gallops) down the hall and stands about four inches next to me, staring at the picture. I turn to him and, in my polite way, tell him, "I wasn't asking you. I assume you know who this is." "YEP!" he declares, "That's W's- that's the woman who stuck with W!" I don't know if that was supposed to be funny or what but my brother and I just silently turned our backs on him and walked away in perfect synchronization.
LOVE: DELETING FRIENDS OFF OF FACEBOOK
Oh what a filthy pleasure. It's immature, certainly, but it feels so great. I realize that when you delete someone off of Facebook they don't even realize you've done it, but I'm perfectly fine with that. As I long ago taught one of my padawans (Lesson 47: Successful Pranks) most of your pleasure in life should come from the action, not the reaction. Your greatest moment of glee should be when you apply the superglue to the toilet seat - not when someone sits on it. Regardless of anyone ever even is affected by your prank, you've gotten your pleasure and moved on. If your satisfaction is based on reaction then A) your chances of getting caught increase exponentially, and B) there are plenty of ways your prank can lead to less than ideal results, forcing you to be displeased with the whole thing.
Now, deleting friend off of Facebook isn't a prank, of course, but the same principle applies, though not necessarily for the same reason. I'm just saying, I don't delete people so one day they'll realize, "Hey, Andrew hasn't posted any incredibly witty statuses lately, I wonder how he's doing." Then they'll go to their friends and realize I'm not there and be OH SO ANGRY! Nay, rather, I do it because it makes me happy. I once made the mistake of thinking that I had to accept all Friend Requests from anyone I knew, even if I just knew them from when I was a kid, or if I had met them once at a party. Well, people are the most annoying things on earth, and I used to spend a great part of every day being incensed at the stupidity and inanity that these little creeps would litter my News Feed with. I would bite on my tongue until it bled, attempting to not start a flame war by telling them what I thought of their ridiculous opinions. No more, I say! No more! There are few things in life that make one feel so good and have no negative consequences whatsoever. Go through your Facebook Friends today and delete at least a dozen people, and tell me you don't feel better. I love it. My goal is to get down to like sixty friends, and then eventually to only myself. Then one day I'll delete myself, and that's how the Social Network Part II (tagline: What if Facebook was actually as important as teenagers think it is?) will end. In tragedy, bitterness, disillusionment, and deletion.
I also deleted a lot of people out of my phone contacts today, and that wasn't nearly as fun. See, phone contacts aren't offensive, it's just bothersome to scroll through them all. However, deleting people reminded me of stories from the past, as I would just name people in ways so I could remember them, as opposed to whatever their names actually were. I'll leave you with the names of some people I erased today:
Beth the Bull
Ashley Zombie
TayTay
Bobby Tattoo
3 (when this black fellow gave me his number he was insistent that I use, "3" not, "three")
Nigga D
Tabby the Rabby
Steven Bread
Creepy Lauren
Jody Breezy
Rebekah Pregnant (this person wasn't actually pregnant, but one day I ran into her in Wal-mart and she quickly hid a pregnancy test behind her back. We made very small talk for about fifteen seconds and then I said, "I can't help but notice you're hiding a pregnancy test behind your back.")
