"Almost cut my hair. Happened just the other day. It was gettin' kind of long. Guess I could've said it was in my way. But I didn't, and I don't know why. Gonna' let my freak flag fly." - CSNY (If you have to ask, immediately go throw away all of your Brittany Spears cd's and buy some taste).

Let me just preface this by saying I am a cheapskate. Except for the times that I'm a spendthrift. You know; important things like that movie that just came out on DVD that I've just got to have. In this case, X-Men trois. My fiscal archetype depends on the situation. For instance today, I'd like to rent a compressed air canister and blow out my sprinkler system. I also need a haircut wicked bad. Solution: cut my own hair. Now, I've done this before. However, that time I buzzed to the skin and then shaved myself bald. This would be my first attempt at styling myself.

Step 1: Take all of the crap that came with the shears out of the little plastic bags they've been in for six months, and try to figure out which guard the stylist uses when I tell her one on the sides and four on the top. I assume that these numbers are numerators in relation to a denominator of 8, that is, 1 = 1/8", 4 = 4/8 or ½", etc. "Cool", I think to myself. I'll use the ½" all over and come back in with the 1/8" on the sides.

Step 2: Regroup after it becomes obvious that I will not be able to cut it evenly with the ½" guide. Have you ever had your four year old give your two year old an unsupervised coif? It looked something like that. New plan. Use ¼" guide all over head in attempt to mitigate damage. It's about pride at this point. I will shave myself bald again before I go to the stylist and ask her to stop laughing and fix my faux pas.

Step 3: Go door to door in the neighborhood, asking neighbors to spot me as I attempt to style the back of my head. Alternative plan: Go grab my funhouse type shower shaving mirror and use it concert with the two mirrors in the guest bathroom to get a decent view of the back of my melon.

Step 4: After reaching an adequate level of satisfaction with the evenness of the cut, I ponder how I will come away with a straightish line across the bottom on the back of my head. With the help of a styling comb, the funhouse hand held mirror, the guideless shears, a crash course in yoga, and a quick prayer I come away with a result that is not entirely hideous.

Step 5: Cleanup. Any word that rhymes with pre-nup can't be good. Incidentally, pre-nups have never been a problem for me. How enticing could half of my debt be? Oh, my! It looks as though a couple of cats had a hairball contest. How'd I get hair in my teeth? I have learned a few things from shaving the old dome, though. The new trimmer has a built in vacuum with a hair collection chamber, so most of the hairballs go directly in the trash can. Do most of the cutting over the sink and you can wash a lot of the little pieces down the drain. Wet toilet paper is a tiny hair particle magnet. Important note: wet with tap water.

Things you never think about until you try to cut your own hair: Salt and pepper hair makes it exponentially more difficult to tell if you just got a little too close in that one spot, or the hair there is just a big bunch of grey (especially when cutting it down to ¼"). Evolution. If guys were really meant to cut their own hair, we'd have three or four arms and some patience. I seriously considered stopping about halfway through to go sit down and watch the aforementioned mutant movie. I mean, really. It didn't look so bad. Nothing an Avs cap couldn't cover up. Discovering parts of your body previously taken for granted in a new light. That cowlick in the back has kind of a swirly pattern. It looks almost like a weather show rendition of a hurricane. Hurricane Billy.

In the end, I am not totally dissatisfied with my new do. I will need to see what Judy thinks. There's always that Avs cap. At least I got my money's worth.