I don’t know why I remember waiting for my mother to get a haircut back in my preteen years. After weeks of incessant complaints about my hair being hurled at me by my mother, she finally dragged me to the nearest Supercuts. No other woman, man, screaming kid or content kid was to be seen. The lone hair stylist there greeted us, as usual, with an eerily bright smile that was a little too big. With the way my mom practically forced me onto the stool for my haircut I doubt she could have withstood another second of the sight of my long hair. Hair on the ground under me hadn’t been swept up and began to make shapes at me as clouds do. Mostly hares. Since I’m not a hair fiend like my overbearing, hair-driven mother, I don’t remember the details of the haircut itself (I remember it being a little more bowl cut and a little less Bieber).
As soon as my beautiful locks and manly curls had been sheared from my scalp I found myself waiting outside as my mother pleasantly endured the hollow small-talk and insidious smells of dirty hair and hair products. Sitting in the heat while my chest was being slaughtered by the post-haircut itchiness, I was joined by an older teenager. He leaned against a pillar nearby kicking at a rock by his feet. In his hand, a Hot Dog On A Stick bag. The bag only served as a reminder that I felt like a hot dog slathered with the batter of the sweltering heat. I looked back through the window of the Supercuts to see my mom scanning one of those crinkled, outdated fashion magazines with the B-list celebrities on the cover that rest on the waiting area couches for months while the hair stylist blabbed on. The Corndog Kid, as I would later call him, was wearing black converse, tight blue jeans, a sky blue polo shirt, thick-rimmed glasses and a James Dean-esque haircut slightly flattened with sweat. His blue outfit stood out from the heated environment surrounding him as he reached into the bag and pulled out a corndog.
I watched as his opened, waiting mouth was greeted by the head of the corndog. Corndog Kid’s tongue hungrily greeted the underside of the deep fried cornmeal batter but was quickly pulled away as it burned his mouth. His back and head rested flat on the pillar, his feet several feet away from the wall propping him up, he gently rotated and blew on his hot lunch. Bullets of sweat started to form on his upper arm and forehead as he finally bit into the corndog. His scruff jaw moved up and down, his mouth opening slightly every time he chewed. Corndog Kid took one more delicate, yet sizeable bite when an overweight teen girl joined him.
“Please be his sister,” I thought as he offered a bite of his corndog to her.
Obviously accepting his offer, she finished the rest of the corndog in one chomp. Sitting in the car in the parking lot I saw Corndog Kid and mystery girl pull two more corndogs from the bag, take a bite, and kiss with their cheeks stuffed.
“She didn‘t cut your hair short enough,” my mom complains as she pulls out of the parking space.
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