You've done it again State College.

So my first order of business upon coming home from school was to get a hair cut. The initial "buzz cut" turned "bed head," which grew into a "flowbie," struggled into a "(not so) Jew-fro," and then toppled over into a thicketed "mop-top" should have been more than a sufficient enough hair style for a homeward bound, post-traumatic-stress college kid, like myself, looking to pass out for three straight summer months. But alas, life is never so simple.

It turns out that regardless of how tired it might be, (and unless otherwise acted upon by a chemical sedative or commensurate Chipotle Burrito binge) the human body will inevitably wake itself up within a 24 hour period. After the first three consecutive days of this happening, I turned off my hypnotic "call of the wild" nature soundtrack, unglued my eye-lids shut, took a shower, and realized that any act of living surpassing my current state required money. I thus needed a job, and in order to look presentable, was left with no other option but to cut the aforementioned coppice of hair triumphantly adorning the top of my head.

In State College, be advised that a seemingly trivial task such as getting a hair cut should, in fact, be coupled with a healthy dose of fear.

"Can you just take an inch off all around?" I ask the woman, finding my self in a chair at the downtown Supercutz. She assures me of the simplicity of my request and I take to fantasizing about what new opportunities await a freshly shorn stripling such as myself. Perhaps the newly granted aerodynamics of my cranial region would inspire me to pursue an athletic hobby like running (they say its good for the heart) and in doing so find that I'm actually a Chariots-of-fire-esque, cross-country phenom. Or maybe I'd walk out the doors and receive a new perspective on life, brought about by the new found clarity with which I now saw the world, free from those former visually stifling locks of hair. I'd decide to run for President, win, and subsequently bring about world peace. Sitting in that chair, in what amounted to three blissful minutes of revelatory ignorance, I saw the world as mine for the taking. I suspended my former cynicism toward life's innumerable dissapointments and considered the Oprah-worthy biography I could write about how one liberating hair-cut set me on the accomplished path I walk today.

Unfortunately for me, "an inch off all around" applies (at this culturally forsaken enterprise) only to select portions of the head, limited in a way that leaves the unsuspecting patron with some obscure variant on the classic mullet. Such are the methods taught at Pennsylvania's Beauty School for the Spread of Incestuous Hair Styles, and such is the way your dreams can shatter to the tune of Pink playing in the background.

I'm made aware of visual/stylistic/moral crime perpetrating itself upon my innocent head when I notice the entire back of my hair has failed to make contact with the saving grace of clippers. At first I thought I'd give her the benefit of the doubt, because the Euro-mullet is still an acceptable fashion statement in parts of East Berlin. "Wo ist ihr ständiger Wohnsitz?!?!!" I cried. Receiving only a terrified look of confusion, I knew then that I was simply a victim of the cultural renderings of central Pennsylvania.

Fortunately, by my coaching thenceforth, I emerged from the ordeal with an adequate and socially acceptable haircut. I was lucky. But as a word of encouragement for those less fortunate in a similar situation, even the most ridiculous "doo" can usually be remedied with a qualifying "indie-tastic" stamp of approval: "Well I obviously meant to shape my hair like a head of broccoli dude, jeez I didn't move to Williamsburg yesterday."



word.