Teach Yourself

Gary lives alone in a small apartment in Birmingham. He doesn't like to pay for things he can do himself. "Why pay a professional?" he always says. "There is a video for everything on the internet."

Last year he taught himself to cook. He watched videos every evening, and now he makes a very good curry. Then he taught himself to fix his old car. It took three weekends, but the car works. Gary was very proud of himself.

Last Friday he had a new idea. A haircut in the city center costs twenty pounds. "I can cut my own hair," he thought. He found a video, bought some scissors and stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

The front was easy. The back was not. Gary couldn't see himself well, and the scissors went too far. When he looked in the mirror again, there was a big hole in his hair above his left ear. "Oh no," he said to himself.

He put on a hat and went outside. His neighbor Priya was in her garden. She looked at the hat and smiled. "Did you cut your own hair?" she asked. Gary took off the hat. Priya laughed, but not in a bad way. "Don't worry. My brother is a barber. I can fix that."

Priya fixed his hair in ten minutes. The hole was still there, but now it looked like a style. "Thank you," said Gary. "Can I do something for you?" Priya pointed at her car. "It doesn't start." Gary smiled. "I know a video about that."

Now Gary and Priya help each other all the time. He fixes her car, and she cuts his hair. Gary still watches videos, but he has learned something new: you can't do everything by yourself.