A Bad Do

Yesterday I went for my first haircut in Whitehorse. New in town and trying to be frugal I decided to try the barber shop closest to my office. Fittingly it's called The Barber Shoppe. I never expected such an eye opening experience from such a seemingly benign place. Firstly, Murd, the owner, is a 60-something long-haired biker dude with a pot belly, a goatee and a full grey mullet. Now, to be fair, this look is not that unusual in Whitehorse so I dutifully took my seat in the chair.

After awkwardly stuffing barber's paper down my collar and covering me haphazardly with a cape, Murd asked me how I usually have my hair cut. I gave him the standard "clipped short on the sides, scissor cut longer on top" instructions that any barber in the world should be able to handle. Murd could not handle these instructions. Murd shakily and mercilessly mowed my head like a high school soccer field leaving what little hair I have on top over an inch longer on the left than the right. He decided to skip the front altogether (or forgot) and then proceeded to pull out a hose and vacuum my entire melon with a hidden shop vac tipped with a mangy old bristle brush. I assume the shop vac was meant to remove hair clippings and prevent them from ending up on my clothes and down my neck. It did neither.

Then, the straight razor. Normally I like having my neck finished with a straight razor but Murd's trembling put me in fear for my life. I think he was a bit nervous about his hands too because he took more time with the razor than he did cutting the rest of my head. A few tense minutes later the ordeal was over and I asked him how much I owed.
"Just $28", he said.
"Pardon?", says I, stunned, thinking it must be a joke on the cheechako.
"How much do you pay back in Ottawa", he asked.
"About $12", I said as I forked over the cash.
"Oh, well, see you next time", he said unapologetically.
"Unlikely", I thought to myself.

While butchering my hair, Murd had boasted that there was only one other barber in town, Fred up on 4th Ave. He was old and shaky, implying that I really shouldn't bother going there. Thinking he might be putting me on about the cost and the lack of options, I did a quick tour around the downtown core today and discovered that there are 3 other barber shops and about half a dozen salons. In fairness to Murd, Barber's II charges $24 for a men's cut, so he wasn't totally ripping me off.

I've never paid more than $15 at a barber shop (I once paid $9 in Windsor but that was almost as bad as my $28 cut) and I can't understand why hair cutting, of all things, is so expensive here. Next time, if old Fred at City Barber Shop is under $20 I'll take my chances.