The Empirical Manifesto

Needed a haircut. Sounds easy enough. However, I'm not longer in Boyd, and don't know the Grand Prairie area, so I hit up Google. Find a place nearby, give'em a call, they're open until 1900. I have an hour. Pinpoint location on maps.google.com and I'm off! Too bad the address was to an abandoned storefront. I give Tony a call, explain my predicament. He sits at the map and gives them another call to ask for an updated location. No answer. He finds the next address in the list and calls them, relaying the directions to me. It's just down the street. I park and walk to the barber with the flashing neon 'OPEN' sign. It's locked. Next door is a Beauty Salon. That'll do in a pinch, as it's getting late. I walk in and four black women are huddled behind a decorative bush while one is receiving a manacure. The ladies, alive with converstation hush suddenly at my entrance. I hear one whisper, "Who's that?"
"May I help you?"
"Yes, ma'am. I was looking for a haircut and noticed the place next door is closed despite it's "open" sign being lit."
"There's a place a couple of doors down that's usually open."
I thank her and depart, finding a barber just as she said. I open the door and walk in. 40 Mexicans sitting in chairs, two barbers.
"May I help you sir?" One of them asks.
"Haircut?" I ask.
"Have a seat, it'll be a little wait." No kidding, I think.
One young boy is getting his head scraped from the neck to the wide circumference of his head, and from that point he has a dew about 4 inches long, straight up. It's a this point that I notice both the barbers are gay! Homosexual Hispanic Barbers! I've found hairstyling Mecca! My spirits rise. I reach for a paper, it's in Spanish. I sit to watch the TV, it's on a Spanish station. I take my leave to grab a paperback out of the car and return.
The young boy is finished and the next boy arrives. The barber starts to perform the SAME HAIRCUT! My nervousness returns.
My turn. I remove my glasses and take a seat. "Would you pick a style sir?" the English-speakin barber asks (not the one cutting my hair). I look up at this chart numbered 1-40, with blurry eyes trying to make out a style. I'm saved. "Just clippers in front, scissors on top?" the English-speaker asks?"
"Yes, thank you." I reply.
"What number?"
"Two." I say, thinking back to the two head-scrapes before me.
Well, as it turns out, I received the same haircut as the other two boys, thankfully with a number 2 attachment. It wasn't as bad as it could have been.