Today is a remarkable day. For one thing, it’s the first time my site becomes openly visible to the public. For another, I just found out that Sarah Palin has become an official Fox News correspondent, meaning that her comedy routines will now be performed on a regular, timetabled basis. And, most significantly, it marks the first time I have ever left a haircut before it was completed.

It wasn’t just a bad haircut – although it was that, too. It was bizarre. I felt like I was witnessing the dawn of an entirely new approach to removing hair, as if this was some ingenious new method which would reinvigorate the tired, stagnating field of hairdressing and usher in a golden age of hair styling that would be spoken of in wistful tones for centuries to come.

Except it was shit.

Now, I do not pretend to be an expert in hairdressing. I will not for a moment claim that I could do a better job. However, when I give a man fistfuls of money and say “hit my head with sharp things so bits of it fall off”, there is an implicit expectation that he knows what he’s doing. And it’s not like I ask for much in a haircut. My preferred approach to hair styling is “make it short”. This rarely takes more than twenty minutes. Bring out the shears, cut through, smooth out the edges, you’re done. I’d almost do it myself, except then I’d be one of those guys who cuts his own hair.

My initial feelings towards my barber were quite warm. The man being serviced (or “victimized”, as I later came to see) in front of me took about an hour to be done with what seemed like a pretty straightforward cut, and met all of the barber’s attempts at conversation with either stony silence or dismissive grunts. When the man left, the hairdresser thanked him – he responded with an abrupt “Yeah,” and left, which established him in my mind as an arrogant dickhead. Now I want to buy him a drink so that we can sit in melancholy silence and act grizzled together.

I should, at this point, inform you that I feel rather uncomfortable with those hairdressing covers they put over you. Not the sheet itself, mind you, but the tight buttoning-up part that constricts your neck. So when this fellow pulled the damn thing around my neck as hard as he could and fastened the tightest possible button he could get to, it did not endear him to me. To understand how tight it was – it left welts in my neck, my face went bright red whilst wearing it, and at one point, when I moved my neck slightly during the procedure, my Adam’s apple slid underneath it. I actually choked.

A bit of the blame rests on me for this one, though. I could have told him it was too tight. But I’ve worked in the service industry long enough to have an instinctive hatred of any customer who ever complains about anything, and I just can’t bring myself to be that guy.

From here on out, though, it’s all on him. From his unique cutting technique to an inexplicable fascination with my ears, I’m now thoroughly convinced he got his hairdressing qualifications at a lawnmowing academy.

As I’ve already said, I’m no expert on the matter, but as I understand it, standard procedure when using shears is something to the effect of “move apparatus along hair. Repeat.” This simplistic technique was clearly too common for my unappreciated genius of a barber, because he took the melon-tossing approach to haircuts which is woefully underused these days. For the uninitiated, this consists of knocking the victim’s customer’s head in one direction with a short, sharp hit to the side of the head, then stopping it’s movement with the razor during its acceleration. This should result in a brief shearing of hair, followed by a harsh tug at the end to pluck out any survivors. The angle which the razor is pointing at during this procedure is entirely random, and should be varied for maximum hilarity.

The result of this insane approach to follicular genocide is a warren of trenches and pits which bears not even a passing resemblance to a haircut. But this maniac was not done yet.

He began trimming.

Meticulously.

Gradually.

Glacially.

Isolating each individual, lone hair which had escaped his earlier rampages. And Christ, were there a lot of them.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that doesn’t sound too bad. He certainly did make some eventual ground in evening out his initial debacle. But you must remember that by this point, my carotid artery had been severely constricted for about half an hour. And then came the shit with the ear.

I’m not sure if the ladies reading this will be familiar with the concept, but when a barber cuts a man’s hair behind his ear, he has to manoeuvre the ear in such a way as to give him access. This usually consists of bending the ear slightly to accommodate the razor. It does not consist of grabbing the ear and attempting to tear it off, which is precisely what this manchild attempted to do.

While I can appreciate that such an approach will eliminate the problem for future barbers, it does seem to raise a host of other concerns, all of which Admiral Happyslash was blissfully unaware of.

My ears (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of my head) were similarly manhandled for some time. He grabbed them, pulled them, and spent a rather terrifying amount of time literally blowing into my ears. Leaning right in, close and personal, and letting a long stream of wind enter them.

It was at this point that I became convinced my barber had a desperate sexual longing for my ears. I couldn’t help but feel that he was making slow, gentle love to them. And if that was the building sexual tension, then what he did next was the desperate, uncontrollable, jerking climax.

He reached into my right ear. He inserted his middle finger deep into it. He pinched the top of my ear between his index finger and his thumb. And he pulled. Hard.

That was it. There was no possible utility to that movement. He was pulling my ear over my hair. There was no purpose whatsoever to whatever fucked up shit he was doing to me. This was ear rape. The razor lounged in his left hand, utterly forgotten in the throes of his passion.

I snapped.

I told him I had to go.

"But I'm not done yet!" he protested.

YES YOU FUCKING ARE.

I got out of the chair, tearing off the cloak and breathing deeply for the first time in over forty minutes. Hair flew everywhere, but I was long past caring. I ignored his protestations and walked straight to the counter, giving the receptionist the amount of money listed under the misleadingly labeled “haircut” sign. Some may question why I would willingly give somebody money for the experience, but by this point I just wanted to get out of the fucking place without causing a scene. I departed, vowing never to return.

And that was the end of my ordeal. I found the nearest mirror, took stock of the damage, and went to Just Cuts – who, whilst somewhat cold, sterile, and boring, do not consider a debilitating sexual fetish to be an adequate hairdressing qualification.