April 5, 2025: A Little Off The Top

As someone with less hair than I'd like, I usually just do a buzzcut. I've no desire to shave my scalp; seems like way too much effort. I also don't want to go to a barber and pay $30 (even at the cheap places) to do a simple buzzcut, so I've generally been doing it by myself at home, but even that feels like too much effort lately. Then, an idea occurred to me: barber schools. It's pretty hard to mess up a buzzcut.

7 thoughts on “April 5, 2025: A Little Off The Top”

  1. During COVID my hair was getting a little (LOT) longish. I tried to do my own thing, but it's hard to do one side of the back with your dominant hand and impossible to use scissors with the non-dominant hand. When I finally went in for my first real cut, she gasped in horror/laughed. Being a tight Swede it grates me to get mine done for $42 - used to get it for $22 at my old-school barber by work (w/ primo straight edge cleanup at the end) . I like the idea of a barber school option.

  2. Back in college I would get my haircuts at the St. Cloud Beauty School. Not only did you get a trim, if you were smooth you might get a phone number, too.

  3. I stopped getting haircuts when I shaved my head. About two years ago I was invited into my neighborhood’s Black barbershop for a trim. The proprietor spotted me as I was walking in to pick up tacos a couple doors down and flagged me down. “I’d love to shape your beard.” I misheard at first and thought he said “shave,” which caused a round of laughter. He brought me in, gave me his card, and I’ve been going in every other month ever since. I had six months’ flirtation with handlebars and a very full beard, but that was simply too much maintenance every morning. Now I’m sporting a highlighter-thin (not quite pencil-thin) mustache on top of a medium-full beard. Think Dallas Keuchel with a slightly more trim mustache and a bit smaller beard and you wouldn’t be super far off.

Leave a Reply