While watching a movie about life through the lens of a barber shop last week, I thought about our local beauty salon and the unfolding of life stories within its curled and dyed walls. Our little village boasts a beauty salon, not a hairdressing studio, not a gender neutral barbershop or anything of that ilk, but a genuine beauty salon. A hag walks in, a beauty walks out. The operator of the salon, a life long resident of the area and high school graduate, along with beauty tips, freely dispenses her own brand of folksy wisdom to all who walk through her doors.
During one particular visit that began with a tirade regarding the current state of the movie and TV industry, she talked about watching a sci-fi flick with her son and remarked that all the shows about the worlds of the future were so desolate and uncompromising. Not one movie or TV series portrayed a better world than the one in which we are currently living. In the future, apparently, universal shortages of life necessities abound, everyone will try to kill off everyone else just to have enough food to stay alive.
“Life is not better in the future; this ‘here and now’ is the best that life will ever be. Nothing good will happen in the future. It will just get worse and worse”.
She had a point. Even Lost in Space didn’t have good cell phone reception. I nodded quietly and humbly agreed while she melodramatically emoted and snipped close to my jugular. However, while driving home and pondering her words, I gave fruit to her cautionary tale. Mankind’s life has not improved over the years. The post war generation had the best that life had to offer, but for the next generation, the future is somewhat more dire and bleak. Fortunately, as I like to point out to my husband, we are old and won’t be around to see this godforsaken destiny coming.
Another visit found her exasperated with a customer who had just left. Apparently the hapless woman was without relatives so her dogs had become her life loves and companions. And, to ensure that the dogs would likewise think of her as part of their family, the woman purchased the same color contact lenses as the dogs’ eyes. Her reasoning was that the dogs would look up at her, see a more familial face and perceive the ancestral connection. Our hairdresser pointed out the absurdity of this situation, because dogs are color blind.
My neighbor in the seat next to me was irritated to discover that her granddaughter, who is in college but working at a local eatery during the summer, and sharing grandma’s beach house, had been inviting her friends over when grandma was gone and partaking freely from the liquor cabinet, then topping off the liquor bottles with water so that grandma wouldn't notice that her liquor supply was evaporating. Of course, once grandma poured herself a stiff one, only to discover that the expected kick was only a light tap, realized what was going on and confronted her granddaughter, who denied everything, had no knowledge of anything to do with liquor and wouldn’t dream of betraying her grandmother in such a manner. Granddaughter is also going to law school and, as we all know, the first tenet of law is deny, deny, deny.
Not to be outdone, I included the story of the local handyman around town. He is very good at repairs; medium and small appliances and equally expert with other, more personal, handyman chores, including, ahem, servicing some of the lonely ladies. These happy endings ended for a few unfortunate reasons: (1) he is/was married, and (2) one of the grateful ladies gifted him with the clap. What followed was equally unfortunate: after revealing his little malady to his wife and confessing how it happened, she (1) visited her doctor, and (2) visited her lawyer. The unfortunate handyman now is single with no happy ending in sight. Since the town learned the story, because the soon to be ex-wife told everyone the story, people clap their hands together when speaking his name. Ah, but the hairdresser knew the story and knew a few ‘victims’. Evidently his ‘cheer’ had spread far and wide. Yet another cautionary tale learned at the beauty salon.
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