Seeing aliens means time for a haircut

How do you know when it’s time to get a haircut?

Some folks have regularly scheduled appointments with their barbers or stylists, but that has never been my style. I might go six months between shearings, but I do have a couple of triggers that cause something in my brain to say, “Time to get thee to the Flowbee.”

I don’t have an actual Flowbee — I just call it that — but I do cut my own hair with one of those trimmers with the numbered clips like your dad used to cut your hair. The numbers tell you how close to the head the clippers will cut, if you’ve never used one. Folks with siblings learned early on to be first in line because those things got hot, which seemed to make them dull also, so you ended up getting your scalp scalded while the hairs were being ripped out of your head.

The f irst indicator for me that it’s time for a cut is when I put a ball cap on and it slides right off.

The other is when I catch a glimpse of my shadow on the sidewalk or my silhouette in a shop window and my initial reaction is, “Oh my, there is an alien standing right behind me, and it has some kind of space helmet on. A really big helmet.” While most people have hair that falls down their back when it gets long, mine puffs out, making me look like a bobblehead or, as we’ll see in a minute, a founding father.

I discovered a new reminder over the weekend. I looked out the front door the other day to see a couple of teenagers just kind of walking up and down the street. I know Barry Courter most of the people in our neighborhood, and I didn’t recognize these two, and it was odd that they just seemed to be walking in circles up and down the street.

I went outside just so they’d know people were around, and while I was eyeballing them, they were eyeballing me. That’s when it hit me that I’d seen that look in their eyes before. I’d seen it in my own eyes, and I’d seen it in the eyes of thousands of teenagers before.

It’s a look as old as hormones themselves. I don’t know who they were in the neighborhood to see, but I knew it wasn’t me.

While I was processing this, I realized they were just staring at me.

The three of us were in the middle of the street, and that’s when the larger and older-looking of the two says to me, “He says you look like Ben Franklin.”

Now, I wasn’t flying a kite, and I wasn’t wearing knee breeches or a waistcoat, so I knew what he was talking about.

I laughed, told them that was funny and went inside and made a date with the clippers.