Moving, to tell you something you already know, is discombobulating. You become, as Tom Waits puts it, a rain dog, with all your landmarks washed away.
So far my wife and I have found the nearest library, pharmacy, Home Depot (and Rona and Lowe’s and Canadian Tire), and a grocery store. Two things have been much more difficult to sort out: food delivery and a barber.
Having landed in the southern section of Bigabaldi’s Pizza delivery area, we’ve got pizza solved. Everything else has been hit and miss. Strangely, one thing the Internet is not very good at is helping you find good Chinese food delivery in the Oakwood and St. Clair area. (It’s awesome, however, at helping you find supbar-to-mediocre Chinese food delivery in the Oakwood and St. Clair area.)
Finding a barber, on the other hand, has been much more difficult. I guess I lucked out in our last two neighbourhoods. Joe gave me a terrific cut every time and turned the chair towards the soccer game while he worked. And I never had a complaint with the job Mike did, other than feeling that his balls were always perilously close to coming to rest on top of my arm.
But there’s something about going to a new barber that is fraught with uncertainty. Is his ‘short on the sides and back, long on top” the same as mine? For the last guy I tried in our neighbourhood, it definitely wasn’t. When I got home, my wife remarked, “Any longer on top and you’re verging on combover length.”
If I’d said, “longish on top,” would I have gotten what Joe and Mike did effortlessly? Clearly what is required is an International Barber’s Colloquy to define the precise meaning of words like ‘short’ and ‘kinda short’ and ‘short but, you know, not super-short.’ Is it merely a matter of millimeters? That doesn’t take into account head size. Mine is slightly smaller than a ham, so a millimeter or two will not make the difference it would to the wee-headed. Is it a ratio instead? Is it a series of pictographics illustrating the difference? I leave that to the Tonsorial Conclave to decide. Perhaps when they do, they can send a puff of white talcum up a chimney to let us know.
Ideas Free to a Good Home is a clearinghouse of ideas we’re too lazy to develop ourselves.
