The Haircut Disaster

Pablo had known Ethan since their first year of college in Boston, and now Ethan was getting married. Pablo was the best man, which meant that he had to give a speech, look after the rings and look perfect in the photos. The wedding was on Saturday. On Friday afternoon he still had three things to do: get his suit cleaned, have his shoes polished and get his hair cut.

The suit and the shoes were easy. The hair was the problem. His usual barber was on vacation, so he went to a new salon near his apartment. It had large windows, loud music and a hairdresser called Brandon, who had bright pink hair. "Just a little shorter, please," Pablo said. "I'm going to a wedding tomorrow." Brandon nodded and started cutting.

Pablo closed his eyes and relaxed. That was his mistake. Brandon talked the whole time about his own plans to have his apartment painted and his car repaired, and he cut and cut. When Pablo opened his eyes twenty minutes later, a stranger was looking at him from the mirror. His hair was short at the sides and round and thick on top. He looked exactly like a mushroom.

"It's very modern," said Brandon proudly. Pablo paid, put on his hood and walked home as fast as he could. He sent a photo to his friends Mia and Carlos with one word: "HELP." Ten minutes later they were sitting in his kitchen. Mia tried not to laugh, but she failed. Carlos did not even try.

"Okay," said Mia at last. "We can fix this. My cousin Tasha is a hairdresser. She works in Cambridge, on the other side of the river." She called her, but Tasha's salon was closing at six, and it was already a quarter past five. "Tell her we're coming," said Carlos, and he grabbed his car keys.

The traffic was terrible, and they arrived at five fifty-five. Tasha looked at Pablo's head for a long time. "Who did this to you?" she asked. Then she sat him in a chair and got to work. She explained that she could not make his hair longer, but she could make it look as if he had chosen this style on purpose. She cut the top shorter, shaped the sides and finished it with a little wax.

When Pablo looked in the mirror again, he smiled. It was shorter than he usually had it, but it looked good. It looked, in fact, better than before. Tasha refused to take his money. "Just tell everybody at the wedding where you had your hair done," she said.

The next day, the wedding was beautiful. Pablo did not lose the rings, and his speech made everybody laugh. In the speech he told the story of the mushroom haircut, and he showed the photo. Later that night, three guests asked him for the name of his hairdresser. He gave them Tasha's number, of course, not Brandon's.