Opening Doors

I don't think these kinds of stories will ever get old for me:

I went to get my hair cut yesterday and as I'm sitting there waiting for my turn I listened to the hair cutters chatting with their customers about all kinds of inane crap. The hair cutters were just trying to avoid boredom and increase their tips, the heads were trying to hit on the cutters indirectly enough to protect them from rejection, and I was getting nauseated by the whole thing.

Maybe I should do this another time. But my hair was bad, really bad.

I swear to god, I bet there are tons of socially awkward guys that come in to just have someone that will talk to them for 20 minutes so they can go back to their apartment and feel like they are still part of society. Still normal.

Well, to each his own.

But and so my turn came and luckily I didn't get any of the chatterboxes. I got a lady with black hair that had been quietly cutting hair the whole time. She spoke my name and I followed her into the back. Right away I knew she was hispanic. My guess was Cuban. She knew my name, Carlos, but you could tell she didn't suspect a thing.

So she has this very bored look on her face like "here we go again" and I'm just telling her what I want haircut-wise.

"Short."

I appreciate that she isn't small talking me for a tip, she's just getting down to business. Of course she's hispanic.

And it hits me that this is why Americans like to small talk with employees (waiters, hair cutters, grocery clerks, etc.): what else is there? In a mass of so many people that are all identical to the rest, what can you do?

The word that comes to mind is jaded.

So I break out my card: Where are you from? Puerto Rico. Oh. I'm from Guatemala. Really? No. Really? Big smile.

And then we talked for the rest of the cut. Not bullshit/tip talk, but talking the way two people who share a similar past talk. The way people here bond when they realize they went to the same school or came from the same town. Like long-lost friends that have become strangers.

She was very passionate about her country, her culture, and her family.

I looked around at the other cutters, the other heads, and I felt pity for them.

When I left it felt like I had just seen a powerful movie. I was walking on air.