As a child, I attended Iranian elementary school, and anyone familiar with this system would tell you of the million laws of conduct enforced upon the students. I will not get into them here mainly because I could stretch this field into hundreds of more blog entries, but also because only one is relevant to my story.

For some reason, this institution felt that long hair on boys was a sign of rebellion and therefore we were forced to cut our hair short on a regular basis – as early as 6 yrs old. So you can imagine how having gone through this process many times as a kid would have had its toll on me. Either way, the point is that I spent a lot of time at the barber.

As curious as a I was as a child, over time, this procedure became fairly dull and in order to accommodate my boredom, I decided to become the model customer. I wanted to be the barbers star pupil – for him to thank me after the haircut for making his job that much easier. I anticipated every movement of his hand and tried to place my head into the correct position. Unfortunately, at 6 years old, it was very difficult to fully conceive this skillful art and no matter how close I got to completion, I’d eventually get a tap informing me of my failure.

So finally this past visit, after 16 years of unsuccessful attempts, I was determined to mark this one off my list. I showed up early to study my barber, but to my disappointment she was not present this particular day. I was moments away from rescheduling my appointment when I realized that I had waited too long to back out now. I stepped out for some fresh air and then went back in with my game face on. I took notice of this new barber, and studied her scissor etiquette. She was not your ordinary barber. Her style was hard to read and her approach unorganized – but this was all added incentive for me to master this cut.

My time finally arrived and I was exuding with confidence. I sat on the chair as she fastened my cape tight; It was game time. It started off fairly easy with slight tilts left and right, but, like a video game, with each step the process became more and more difficult. Towards the end I was juking rapidly to stay a step above her. She was pulling all kinds of tricks, moving from scissors to machine and back in a fraction of a second. She was good, but I was better. I could see she was getting frustrated as if there was some sort of barber-law I was breaking, but I didn’t care. At this point I was seeing ten moves ahead and welcomed her every challenge.

Twenty or so minutes passed and she finally gave in. She put the scissors down and loosened the cape. I had won the battle. She gave me a vengeful nod but I could see deep inside I had earned her respect. Only issue with my performance was that I allowed her to move my ears. Though, to my defense, I think using my own hands in the middle of her routine would have been highly inappropriate and probably would have required an explanation. Perhaps in another 16 years I’ll reach a level where I can move them hands-free, but until then, I shall remember this historical day as a life lesson. If at first you don’t succeed, you have another 200 tries .