A hairy battle

There is an ongoing animosity between me and the barber who cuts my husband's hair, whom I shall call "Joan," mainly because I don't know what her real name is. It's probably just as well, because I might be tempted to track her down at her private residence and tell her what I think of her hair-cutting skills, which is this: "Find another line of work, 'Joan.' " Not that my skills in this area are any better, but then I don't go around hacking people's hair and extorting them for it.

Joe tells me that she is prone to discuss politics as she cuts his hair, which could explain a lot. Can't you go to someone who's apolitical? I ask him. But convenience, for him, trumps quality, and so it is a useless battle I wage to get him to go somewhere else. There must be any number of better qualified barbers in the city, but "Joan" has one thing they do not -- a shop right down the street from Joe's office.

I started noticing -- it was hard not to -- odd things when he would get his hair cut. Things like one of his sideburns being significantly shorter than the other. "She's a Republican," Joe said by way of explanation. "The elections didn't make her too happy." And the back of his hairline, which when left to its own devices forms a perfect "V," would still show, after a visit to "Joan," a perfect V. "Tell her to cut that straight across, for goodness' sake," I said. "What is she thinking?"

His hair is thick, and she didn't thin it out until I started telling him to tell her to thin it out. And to cut it shorter on top so it didn't look like she had, during a tirade against Nancy Pelosi, forgotten all about cutting the top. "Why are we paying her?" I wanted to know.

At first, "Joan" took my interference in her livelihood pretty well. I would tell Joe what to tell her, and she would dutifully carry out my instructions, although Joe said she would give him a long look before starting in. But something set her off. It could have been -- though I am not certain -- my admittedly clumsy attempt to shave the back of his neck in between cuttings. The shaver accidentally foraged into his hairline, with the result that I had to spend considerable time fixing the damage with scissors, pliers, glue, etc. The next time he went to "Joan," she looked at the back of his neck, pursed her lips, and said, "Your wife is a Democrat, isn't she?"

"Uh, no, actually, um -- ouch!" Joe said.

"Joan" pointed her scissors threateningly at his reflection in the mirror. "Well, tell her to leave this area alone."

You can imagine that I did not take kindly to being told not to interfere in my own husband's hairline. "If she did her job right, I wouldn't have to fix it," I said indignantly.

And thus started our escalating animosity. It has progressed to sending notes back and forth, which Joe dutifully bears like a child caught in a dispute between parent and teacher, a dispute in which he is totally innocent. Except for the fact that he keeps going to "Joan."