The social distancing day-before-birthday

For some yet, as unfathomed reason, Mrs. Ottawacker has been making noises, usually around dinner time, about how she really needs to cut my and Ottawacker Jr.’s hair. How Ottawacker Jr. and I laugh, or at least, used to laugh.
 
“Can you imagine it?” I say to him. “She’ll get out the salad bowl and scissors and make us look like a couple of pudding heads.” And then I pointed out to him, still laughing, that he’d be the one to have his hair done first, because he was the smallest.
 
I then noticed he had stopped laughing. In fact, he was looking at me rather earnestly. And then he said: “She won’t you know. I’m quicker than you are. And I scream.”
 
It took me a moment to cotton on to what he meant. And then the full horror of what he had said hit me. At age 7, my son has relegated me to last place in the family hierarchy: the one to whom things can be done because he is slowest off the mark.
 
I sat there like a goldfish in a toilet bowl for a couple of seconds, until I realized I had to think quickly. So what better time to go and visit someone whose haircut would make Mrs. Ottawacker think mine wasn’t so bad. If Ottawacker Jr. has any better ideas, he can implement them himself. When he can drive.
 
Thankfully, it so happened, that such a person is celebrating his birthday tomorrow (April 27) and as such, we had decided to bake him a cake, take him a card, and stand six feet away from him while bowing happy birthday in the manner of the saikeirei at a Japanese tea ceremony. So off we drove to see Mitch, whose genial smile and uncoiffed locks can make even the most ardent head-shaver see sense.
 
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when we turn up to find Mitch and the boys out front, all immaculately coiffed and looking as fit and as healthy as if they had just been picked up from a six-month Florida cruise with a dozen Hollywood actresses all called Tiffany. We handed over the chocolate cake, made the customary jokes about standing two metres apart, and then I couldn’t take it anymore.
 
“Mitch, what happened?” I said. “The cut, it’s perfect. The gentle bouffant with the cowlick curl. Mitch, how could you? It’s… it’s beautiful,” I cried before storming to the car, slamming the door and sitting there with my arms crossed until Mrs. Ottawacker and Ottawacker Jr. decided to come and join me.
 
So that’s it. My best plan, gone up in smoke. The salad bowl and shears await me. With friends like that, who needs enemas?
 
Happy Birthday mate.