Mark of Fridays: Beyond explanation

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Trying to save money on haircuts by doing our own.

Mark of Fridays: Buzz

Matt, Mark and Anne are playing in the living room.
Anne is running around, destroying things.
Mark decides to make up his own game. The rules of his game: Matt is supposed to name an object, then Mark will bring a different - yet tangentially related - object.
For instance: Matt said plate. Mark brought a plastic bowl. Not the same object. But related.
Matt said: book. Mark brought: magazine. Different. But similar. You get it.
Finally, Matt said: hat.
Mark disappeared downstairs.
Matt played with Anne. Mark was gone for a long while. Matt forgot that he was even playing this crazy game with Mark.
Then, Mark returned.
What did you guess he brought? Did you guess glasses? Did you guess coat?
If you did, you were wrong.
Mark brought a chunk of his hair that he had cut himself.
It made sense. Sort of.

Mark of Fridays: A hair-raising experience

Mark of Fridays: A little off the back

So, Mark has about no hair. He's just basically a baldy - a Charlie Brown, you might say. There's just not much up top. (He has a big head! There's a lot of acreage to cover!)
However, Lynne insisted he was getting a bit of mullet. (As shown in the picture where Mark is stuffing a graham cracker in his face. Look close.)
While Matt acknowledged the 'do was getting a little business-up-top-party-in-the-back, he wouldn't agree that a buzz was necessary. In fact, Matt was decidedly against the haircut because Matt is decidedly cheap. It seemed ridiculous to pay someone to cut five strands of hair. Matt was sure he could do it himself.
At this suggestion, Lynne reminded Matt of previous efforts at home-grown projects. Well played, Red Head.
So, Lynne, Matt and Mark dutifully marched off to the haircut shop.
It was an awesome place for kids. It had a giant slide in it and all the "chairs" were shaped like rocket ships or fire trucks.
When Matt was a kid, he'd sob and wail at the barber shop. This was when he was much, much older than Mark (but not quite in high school). Matt caused quite the scene, apparently. Looking back, Matt can't quite figure out what he was so afraid of. Perhaps a stranger approaching his face with scissors had something to do with it.
So, Matt was a little worried that Mark might totally freak out.

Of course, Mark handled it like a pro. He didn't cry a bit.
And, afterwards, he looked like a Very Big Little Man.
Oh, and the haircut? Fifteen bucks for two and half minutes of cutting.
Even Lynne agrees that Matt can handle the next trim.

Hairy, er, Happy Father's Day!

This is what happened.
One day, not too very long ago, Matt went to get his haircut before work.
Matt and the Barber Lady are making small talk - where do you work? Oh, really, what do you write about? etc. - when Matt looks down at the smock they put over his work clothes.
The smock is all black and Matt notices it's covered in many light brown hairs. And then...
"Wow, there's a lot of white hair on there," Matt says.
"Don't worry, there's not too many white hairs," Barber Lady says, repeating the phrase 'white hair' for some reason.
"Well, there used to be none!" Matt tells Barber Lady.

OK, we need to stop right here for Short History of Hanley Hair.

Matt's grandfather, also Matt had classic black hair. When he was young. By the time Little Matt came around, Matt (the original) barely any hair at all.

Matt's dad, Mark, had jet black hair. When he was young. Now, it's not quite as black. That's as far as this blog will go with that.

So, back to the story.

Sadly - embarassingly - it can be told here that Matt loves his hair. It gets more maintenance and oil than his car, by a long shot.

Still, truth be told, Matt didn't mind the white hairs too much. There were only a few, and it was all kind of amusing. Matt considered naming each one after an unpleasant wedding task. ("Whoops, looks like picking-an-invitation-font fell out!")
But what happened next was unprecedented.
Barber Lady told Matt - no asking, no requesting, not even a courtesy check - to lean his head back. She was going to trim up his eyebrows.
What?
"Do I have wild eyebrows?" Matt thought. "When did this happen?"

Now, this was a fact that was left out of the earlier Hanley Hair History. Matt's dad also has been known to have some wild eyebrows in need of trimming.

So this unexpected eyebrow trim - so obvious to Barber Lady it wasn't even worth a warning - could only mean one thing: Matt was becoming his father.

There had been several previous signs that something like this might be coming.

Sign One: Both Matt's Dad and Matt's grandfather had this saying. Matt would ask for something strange and they'd respond with "I'll give you... (fill in item requested)."

Why they would say this is a mystery. "I'll give you grape jelly." Yes, thank you, that is what I asked for in the first place. Matt realizes this phrase makes no sense. But he cannot help using it.

Sign Two: Matt follows Lynne around her house, turning off lights obsessively. This is definitely a Hanley Man trait. Mark has been known to turn off lights while users are still in the shower. Walk in the kitchen to get the remote and all the lights are off when you return.

Sign Three (and this is a big one): It is a well-known fact that when Matt's mom goes out for the night leaving Matt's Dad to himself, Mr. Hanley participates in a consistent ritual: He runs, gets a slice of pizza and watches The Godfather. Once he switched it up and watched The Godfather, Part II.

The other day Lynne went out of town. Having no one to eat dinner with, Matt was left to fend for himself. So he ran, made a frozen pizza and watched The Wire. The Godfather was already packed in a box.

So that clinched it. Matt and Mark and Matt were one and the same; the Hanley Men Graph neither dips nor accelerats, simply stays in one steady, static line.

Here's what Matt has to say about all this, on Father's Day, as he enjoys a trip to Tiger Stadium with his Dad.

Great.

If it means weedwhacking the eyebrows, turning off lights or - gasp - going bald, Matt would be overjoyed if he turned out just like his Grandpa or Dad.
I'll give you great role models.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. We love you very much.