j040710 (imported)
July 10, 2004
Grooming tips for my male readers:
Suppose for a moment that you let your wife cut your hair with the clippers, because it’s July, summer, and just plain hot as fuck outside. You get your wife to do it because you’re planning to cut it pretty short (1-inch all over), and "free" is always better than "17 bucks" when it comes to a haircut.
When she’s done, and you’re admiring yourself in the mirror, you might notice that your hair looks a little longish around the ears. That’s okay, the trimmers come with a special "ear attachment" just for dealing with these situations. The attachment trims short on one edge and longer toward the other, so that when you run it around your earline it cuts it short and blends your hair length for you. It says so, right on the clipper box.
Grooming tip #1: if your wife says she has no skills that would make her able to use such an attachment, listen to her and heed her warnings.
Grooming tip #2: if you’re the ornery sort, and don’t listen to her, she may very well shave a big triangular wedge of bald onto the side of your head just over your ear.
Grooming tip #3: if she does, and you have dark hair, you can dab a little bit of her mascara on the bald wedge each morning and rub it in, and make the wedge disappear until you shower. It even holds up if you swim in a place like, oh, I don’t know, a quarry. It’s just like Ron Popeil’s spray-on hair, only cheaper and much less manly.
Not, of course, that I would do any of these things. I’m just saying.
If you happen to swim in a place that causes swimmer’s itch, I’ve found that drying off and immediately changing clothes when you get out of the water works wonders at prevention. You’d probably want to buy one of these, if you start changing.
I’ve found that trying to change while wrapped in a towel can lead to embarrassing dong-floppage-in-front-of-people incidents. These incidents are especially bad if you’ve been swimming in a place like oh, I don’t know, a quarry, which has really cold water.
If you’re gonna dong-flop the strangers, aim for a time not right after cold water submersion. Trust me on this.
I handed the spud a copy of the quarry’s liability form (aka the "I won’t sue you if I drown, crack my skull on a rock, or get dragged to a watery grave by some creature from the deep" form), already filled out by Robyn.
"Sign and date this," I said.
"Where?"
"Right there. Where it says ’signature’ and ‘date’."
She signed and dated the form.
"What is it?" she asked.
"A liability form, so we won’t sue them if something happens while we swim."
I launched into a short diatribe on perpetual victims who do things like swim in a quarry, then file a lawsuit when they disobey the "no diving" signs and injure themselves by diving.
"So basically," I concluded, "this form at least gives the quarry people a little bit of protection, because it says that you understand you’re swimming at your own risk. Of course, something like this form won’t stop a money-grubbing ambulance-chasing trial lawyer."
Another short diatribe ensued. When I finished, I looked expectantly at the spud.
"Do we give the form to the quarry people?" she asked.
I blinked.
"No," I said, "we just wad it up and throw it in the trash right before we dive off the rocks."
Here’s your sign, I thought.
Later, while we were drying off, I told the spud about a run-in I had with rattlesnake a few weeks ago.
"Are rattlesnakes poisonous?" she asked.
"They’re one of the deadliest snakes around here."
"Is the poison how they kill you?"
I blinked.
"No," I said, "they jump out from behind a rock and yell ‘boo!’ in hopes that you’ll have a heart attack."
Here’s your sign, I thought.
Ah, the scintillating conversation of having the spud back home.
At either end of the quarry (yes, I am aware that I write about the quarry a lot. Shut up.), underwater, there are wooden platforms. On the close end, the platform is fifteen feet down, and is used as a safety stop by SCUBA divers. The platform at the other end is deeper, about twenty-three feet below the surface, and only dimly visible when the sun is shining brightly.
The far platform is deep enough to be marked by a buoy, so that divers will know it’s there:
Since I first discovered that platform, it’s been my driving goal to swim down and touch it, and I make one or two tries every time we go swimming. Yesterday, I tried again.
I hovered in the water, one leg twisted into the buoy’s rope so I could float without having to tread water, and took a few deep breaths. Not many, mind you, because I just read a news story about someone drowning in a pool because he’d hyperventilated in preparation for an underwater swim. Just a few breaths, to stretch my lungs.
Taking one final breath, I pulled my leg out of the rope, flipped over, and dove. For speed, I grabbed the rope and pulled myself, hand over hand, down into the water. The platform grew in my sight, and became more and more clear the deeper I went. My ears started to hurt, but still I pulled myself down. Before long, I could make out the slick green algae coating the wooden planks.
My ears sang from the pressure, and my lungs reminded me that man wasn’t made to live underwater. Closer and closer, until finally, I stretched out one hand and touched the slippery two-by-four. I thought my head might crush like an empty Coke can, the pressure was so much. A fight brewed between the pain in my head and the screaming from my chest. I flipped over again and looked up.
I was so deep in the water I couldn’t see the surface, just the thin bouy rope stretching out above me to invisibility.
That instance was probably the closest I’ve come to having a true moment of panic since I started writing this journal.
I kicked off the platform as hard as I could and swam for the surface. Slowly — eternally slow, it seemed — the surface and the bouy came into sight above me. As the pressure in my head decreased, the pressure in my chest increased. I pulled on the rope so hard to get to the surface that I pulled the buoy underwater. At the last instant before I thought I might actually drown, I broke the surface.
But I touched the fucking platform, and it was worth it.
Stories like this sure do make me feel dorky for my melodramatic platform dive.
You have to start somewhere, Fred. One day you’ll be headed for deeper waters. Hopefully, it’s because you want to and not because Robyn has cement blocks tied to your legs.
The whole cold water and shrinkage thing cracks me up every time.
You men are so silly.
I used to cut my husband’s hair with clippers. I have no haircutting skills, but it worked out ok for a long time because he wears it in a short (1/4″ or so) buzz cut.
Then one day I forgot to put the guide on the clippers - oops! - and shaved a big bald swath on the back of his head. I tried like crazy to even things up, but no dice. We had to shave his head.
Now he always goes to a barber. Seems he doesn’t trust me around his hair anymore…
Look at those flippers on that Tanya Streeter. They’re so long! Congrats on touching the platform.
Oh but I know exactly what he means! Cold water shrinkage can even temporarily make it an “innie” so that it looks like a big belly button!
Probably just should have gone with the Kojak look after the blunder, Fred. I’ll bet you would look very King of Siam like that
Hey Fred! I’ve got another grooming tip for males. Under NO circumstances should you ever try to cut your own hair with clippers by using 2 mirrors. You will NOT be able to get it straight and you WILL walk around for several weeks with totally jacked up hair. Don’t ask me how I know this. Heh.
Stacey I have exactly the same story, and read out Freds’ journal to DH as I knew he would totally relate, and we both laughed.
On a more serious note, we have just seen Bowling for Columbine, and yes there was some really interesting stuff in there, but , and I’m not being funny here, and probably am being mean,but isn’t obesity a bigger killer of kids and adults in America than guns? Should Mike Moore now attack McDonalds like he did K-Mart (although I happen to praise him for that), but shouldn’t he also be dragging those mums and dads who buy loads of bad food for their kids and interview them on camera, and asked the hard questions like he did to Charles Heston?
okay do we still have a flame forum? I guess this should be there
Pauleene
Oh my gawd,
Dong Floppage, clippers, Spud conversations, panic moments….
What a great entry!
Hiya Fred. I couldn’t help going ‘Eek!’ when I was reading about your near exploding ear drums and lungs and thought I’d offer some diving advice that I recently gained when I went on an introduction to Scuba Diving course. You may already know it of but I’ll say it anyway! To minimize pressure on your ears and sinus you should press on your nose and blow lightly each metre you descend (a bit tricky if you’re swimming with both hands I know!) and, to relieve pressure on your lungs you should let out small bubbles of air as you hit significant depth (we were told that we musn’t hold our breath if our breathing apparatus came out because of dangerous pressure levels in the lungs). Whether any of this applies to free diving or it’s just specific to Scuba Diving I’m not sure..but I thought it may help for future dives!
This has got to be the most honest and funniest thing I have read all day…The grooming tips, though, could easily also apply to women who keep their hair fairly short. I have endured the shame of bald spots in an effort to save money. I now gladly pay $28.00 to have my hair cut every 6 weeks.
And the quarry? Look, I had a pool in my yard growing up so maybe I am a bit spoiled but all those slimy things growing up from the bottom would definitely keep me from plunging as deep as I could go for fear of Scooby Doo type water monsters actually living down there. But hey, more power to ya…it makes for great reading!
I agree on the ear equalization tip above. Ouch!!! And don’t try it with a cold. However, you don’t have to worry about lung expansion in free diving. Your lungs will compress at depth but the air only re-expands to the same volume it had when you inhaled it at the surface.
As a certified diver, I’ve decided if I’m going more than 5 feet underwater it’s better to just take the air with me so I can take my time equalizing the ear pressure. I think you’d like diving, Fred, you get to wear all kinds of dorky gadgets and even underwater computers! Of course my computer broke last week so now I think gauges are better.
Hair Tip #4
Don’t go to one of those chain hair “salons” where you get the stylist who does a crappy job, pay $12 and come back 3 months later (after your hair finally grown out of the chop job you got) and hope you won’t get the same stylist. You will get the same crappy stylist who still hasn’t learned how to cut hair.
Fred are you on vacation or something??? We haven’t heard from you in 2 weeks! Lets check the archives you haven’t been that quite in a long time have you? Let’s hear it surely you have had something interesting happen in this time frame!