You know that phrase “never have I ever”? Sure you do. Well never have I ever cut a naked man’s hair in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Until. This. Day. I had no idea this was on my bucket list but the day arrived and I seized it. It was a perfect day for wielding sharp instruments over my husband’s body in relative safety. Winds are softer today and the seas are gentle. We are heeled about 10 degrees without any of the big waves that hit the boat like thunder claps. So I grabbed my bag of scissors, a towel, and a rat tailed comb and set up shop in the cockpit.

Mike has been growing his hair out since the Covid 19 hit and he had to stop going to Mexican barber shops. I haven’t seen it this long since the early 1980s. We have been moving well into man bun territory with his hair and while I do love me a nice man bun on the right person, I felt like since we are moving home to find jobs for awhile he would be misleading employers if he showed up with his hair in a topknot, regardless how tidy. He doesn’t do enough yoga or meditation to rock the look without question. I mean, what if his potential employer wants to go for a burger and the assumption is that Mike is a vegetarian? That could lead to all kinds of unpleasantness. In order to transition slowly into civilized culture where people are expected to at least wear pants, I convinced him to let me have a go at that hair. Hair first. Pants later.

I have hair cutting scissors because I used to wear bangs and had to trim them about every week. What I also have are my grandmother’s thinning sheers. She used to cut her own hair with them and I imagine the last time they were sharpened was 1967. I got to work with my implements of destruction and happily snipped away. The thing about Mike’s hair is that there is a lot of it and it both curls and waves, as well as growing in all different directions like it can’t decide which way to go. So even though I have zero haircut training, I have watched hair being cut many times and I figure I inherited haircut knowledge from my grandmother. Plus I am pretty good at acting like I know what I am doing even if I am clueless. Confidence is half the battle won. Between my confidence and his hair which hides all kinds of disastrous cuts with its curls, it doesn’t look half bad. After the cut he bounced and behaved all the way to the aft deck shower to rinse off. It was so cute. He couldn’t stop touching his hair.

When he gets his hair cut for real back home someone’s surely going to ask, in a tone that here means ‘oh my god who did this to you’, where he got his hair cut last. I encourage him to say ‘In the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a boat going 5.5 knots at a 10 degree heel by an overly confident woman with no training using dull scissors. Any further questions there, pardner?’. Then I will jump out and photograph the look on the barber’s face and it will be hilarious.

Also we caught a Dorado today but also our fridge is acting up for the first time in 3 years. That figures because it did the same thing on the way out of Puget Sound when we started the trip. So now I have to go hold tools for Mike and admire his new haircut while we check the freon level.

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