So, this man comes in to my office today and sits there looking like Matt Damon, only shorter, younger, and not an actor. He’s one of the many guys around here working for one of the many fly-by-night companies working the Fayetteville Shale Play.
Ah, what a winning pair of blue eyes and a nice smile. Just a few years older than my son, I was wondering what he’d be like, but I liked him immediately. I got him talking.
“I love my wife. She’s been my wife for 12 years and she’ll be my wife for at least another 12,” he said, and he was serious. I liked him more.
“I don’t know where I’d be without my wife. She’s a real penny-pincher and we’ve got some savings. In fact, in the last 12 years, she’s splurged twice. She bought a car and she bought an iPad. I can’t figure that thing out, but she does amazing things with it.” I liked him even more.
The next guy came in and sat down, and I was struck by the contrast, though I couldn’t say how right away. He had the same short haircut as the first man, seemed clean-cut on the outside, but his skin was pale and peaked. His eyes were gray and his cheeks were sunken. When I met his eyes, they didn’t smile back, so the interaction between us was superficial at best.
I felt a little uneasy. I can usually break through to the people I talk with and can find something, anything positive to build on. Not with this guy. Instead, I just went through the routine, did my thing and left it at that.I was just about to wrap things up when I glanced down at his out of state driver’s license and had to stop and get a good look. The photo (they’re never good ones) was of him, but with straight, very long hair and a beard, like the man in this photo. I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud and said, “Wow, look at the hair!”
“Yeah,” he said, “I figured I’d better cut it before I came back. I don’t think my father would appreciate me coming home with my hair like that.”
I apologized up and down for laughing at his license photo. Here I am an old hippy and I’m caught off guard by that long hair. Maybe it was because it was now so short and spiked up that tickled my funny bone, and considering his chain of events, it’s possible his hair cut was only a few days old. Maybe it wasn’t gel that make it spike but the lack of gravitational pull.
There you have it. In a few short minutes, I was treated to clean cut to cut clean off without skipping a beat. You gotta love it.
