Short Back and Sides (13 page)

15 April 2010

Customer:
Everyone is off today, it being Good Friday, and I came up the motorway. By the way, it's a beautiful day in Cork—the sun is shining. Anyway, I come up a lot, but on bank holidays there's less traffic—but it's nuts! Everyone is doing whatever speed they want in whatever lane they want. On a working day the traffic is much more streamlined. There was a crash on the N7, and I thought, ‘No wonder!' It's a free-for-all.

Barber:
I'm always asking people what lanes they use on the motorway, and very few people know. I only found out recently that you stay in the inside lane and that the other two are only for overtaking; but it hasn't even been in the Rules of the Road till last year! My girlfriend was stopped by the guards for cruising in the inside lane, so it seems not all the guards know either.

Customer:
It's mad. They build these roads and then don't tell anyone how to use them!

16 April 2010

An Italian customer told me this gem one day . . .

Customer:
You know why men and women will never understand each other?

Barber:
Is this a joke, now, or a pearl of wisdom?

Customer:
A joke? No, this is knowledge. This is so you can understand women better.

Barber:
That's a big claim you're making, but go on, let's hear it.

Customer:
Okay, it's real simple: women need to feel loved to have sex, and men need to have sex to feel loved.

Barber:
Profound.

17 April 2010

Customer:
I can't believe the banks are putting the mortgage rates up. We bailed them out, and now they're sticking it to us. There will be more increases on the way.

Barber:
The rates were supposed to stay the same until September. I wish they'd let us get off our knees before they hit us with this. I can imagine there'll be a lot more repossession now.

Customer:
It's just not right. It was greed that got us into this mess—pure greed!

Barber:
And you know what that means: the bankers had totally abandoned their discipline and threw away the rule book. How did that happen in ten years? Ask anyone who tried to get a mortgage or a loan in the eighties. There's even a story that the banks in America thought they'd eradicated risk and could loan to people with no income, no job and no assets. They were called ‘ninja mortgages'! A customer told me there was an economist in the nineteenth century who thought the banking system would only work if it adhered to Christian principles. And guess what! Greed isn't one of them!

18 April 2010

Customer:
Limerick has no jobs, no minister and no bishop, but they have the pubs open on Good Friday!

19 April 2010

Sky News is on the shop television, and the story covering the Icelandic volcano is on . . .

Customer:
What are the odds?

Barber:
The odds on what?

Customer:
We get the best weather we've had in years, and then, out of nowhere, for the first time in two hundred years, there's a huge volcano in Iceland, and the ash blocks out the sun!

20 April 2010

Customer:
I was in a nice restaurant the other day having my lunch when a woman came over to clear the table next to me. The tables are very close together, and when she took away the plates she came back with a spray and a cloth. Well, I couldn't believe what she did: she soaked the table with the spray, and it was like a mist in the air. I could smell it, and it was like fly-killer—really pungent. I was thinking, ‘If I can smell it then this stuff is getting on my food.' It put me right off.

Barber:
I had that happen to me too! It really is a bad idea. I cringe when I see the cleaning products coming out!

21 April 2010

I've had almost every customer in the last few days tell me they know someone stuck in an airport somewhere in Europe. One customer had a friend stuck in Spain. ‘Well, that's not such a bad place to be stuck,' I said. ‘Well, you're wrong there,' he replied. ‘It's been raining.'

There was black rain in Reykjavík because of the ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, and one of the papers had a photo of the dust cloud and the headline ‘Europe's 9/11!' The dust cloud had spread over most of Europe and had forced the planes to be grounded, as the dust plays havoc with jet engines and causes them to fail. It's a natural disaster of biblical proportions. But here's something I heard from the barber's chair while talking about the volcano:

Customer:
Did you know that two hundred years ago there was a large volcano in Iceland and that it caused crops to fail all over Europe? Even as far away as North America the dust cloud was seen. Well, after the crops failed there was a shortage of food, and this food shortage caused the French to revolt in 1789.

22 April 2010

Customer:
I can't believe it's snowing again—never saw anything like it: a blizzard of snow and then the sun comes out and it's warm again!

Barber:
Tell me about it! I was up the mountains last week, and there was snow still—in patches, but up to a foot deep. It's nearly two months since the snow fell.

Customer:
In the country there's a saying: ‘If there's snow on the mountains it's waiting for more.'

26 April 2010

Customer:
Have you heard of the Choctaw Indians?

Barber:
No, I can't say I have. Why?

Customer:
Well, I heard you talking about the Famine to that last customer, and I thought of a story I'd heard about the Choctaw Indians. The tribe was forced to move from their homeland around the Mississippi to Oklahoma to free up land for European settlers, and many died on the way. It became known as the Trail of Tears. When the people heard about the Irish Famine they were reminded of the suffering they themselves had gone through, and they collected money among themselves to send to Ireland in 1847. They sent $710 to the Irish people—about a million or more in today's money—for famine relief. Quite an impressive sum!

Barber:
That's some story!

24 April 2010

Customer:
I had an idea to post on the web site for business ideas. It's called ‘Your country, your call'. Have you heard of it?

Barber:
Oh, yeah, I saw the ad on TV one night. What's your idea?

Customer:
Drink-driving holidays! Imagine going away with the lads to a hotel, and you get cars to drive to the pub, where you can smoke inside and have a load of beer and then drive back to the hotel. The road would obviously have to be closed to other traffic, like a road specifically for the purpose, with rubber barriers on the sides for safety. Can you imagine the number of lads who'd love that? They'd come from all over Europe—stag parties and all. It's a winner.

Barber:
I can't imagine them going for that!

25 April 2010

Customer:
I hate my hair. It's so flat my friends call it Lego hair—you know, like the hair that Lego people have!

Barber:
Brilliant!

26 April 2010

Barber:
I'd put money on Mr Ballygowan backing up that claim.

Customer:
Well, it's true. There are people going round the country dowsing for water and analysing it. If it's good, and if there's a large amount of water, they buy the land!

Barber:
So they expect the water from the reservoirs to get worse?

Customer:
They're banking on it. It'll be hard to get decent water in the future unless you pay for it!

27 April 2010

Our friend from the bookies pops his head in to tell the whole shop that there's going to be trouble over Máire Geoghegan-Quinn's pension if she doesn't refuse it. ‘Trouble, I tell ye!' And off he went up the street, laughing out loud.

Customer:
Is your man for real?

Barber:
Ah, he does that all the time.

Customer:
Mad as a box of frogs. He should be doing stand-up.

Barber
(holding up a back mirror): How is that now?

Customer:
Can you put a straight line across the back there?

Barber:
Are you serious? We didn't do that the last time?

Customer:
I know, but they're the orders from headquarters.

Barber:
You mean the wife?

Customer:
I do—she who must be obeyed.

Barber:
Well, we better do it, then, or we'll both be in trouble . . . There, that's it now.

Customer:
These are the things that make life easier as you get older. You see, if she's happy then I'm happy.

Barber:
Now that's sound advice!

28 April 2010

Customer
(an older gent): I saw coverage of Irish people stuck in airports on the news, and I was taken aback by their attitude. This expectant arrogance is becoming the norm in society. They were demanding that the Government do something to get them home; they demanded that the airports get them to their destination! It's not the Irish way. Sadly, we're becoming a people the likes of which we'd once have despised.

29 April 2010

Customer:
The girls are all out looking well. Amazing what a little sun can do, eh?

Barber:
I know. I bet there are cars crashing round Stephen's Green right now because the drivers are all rubbernecking!

Customer:
Ah, the Green would be the place, all right.

1 May 2010

There were a few lads in the shop, and they were commenting on the women walking past the window . . . sunny day. . . short skirts. . .

Customer 1:
Hey, lads, check out this bird. She'll be coming by in a second.

Customer 2:
Jaysus, you must be joking. I wouldn't ride her into battle. She's bleedin' Dot Cotton!

Customer 1:
Sure what would you know, the state of your bird!

Customer 2:
My bird's got great legs and you know it.

Customer 1:
I've seen better legs hanging out of a nest!

2 May 2010

Customer
(a young doctor): Just a tidy-up. I'm not due a haircut for another week or two, but I've a sex-trafficking ball to go to tonight.

Barber:
Did you just say a sex-trafficking ball?

Customer:
I just realised how that sounds. It's a ball to raise awareness and money to stop sex trafficking, that's all.

Barber:
Well, it's an unfortunate title.

Customer:
Not as bad as the rape ball we went to a few months ago! It was for the Rape Crisis Centre.

3 May 2010

During the good old days of the Celtic Tiger, a homeless person came into the shop one morning and approached me.

Homeless person:
Hi, can I have some money to get a breakfast? I'm starving.

Barber
(handing him a couple of euro): Okay.

Homeless person
(looking at the coin in the palm of his hand, then back at me): Where am I supposed to get a breakfast for that?

Yes, that really happened!

4 May 2010

Customer:
A friend of mine was talking to a young parish priest about his son recently, asking him for advice on how to keep him out of trouble during the dreaded teenage years. So the priest says, ‘Get the lad into sports. We always said it's sport or sex at that age, so get them busy with the sport and he'll be just fine.' ‘Okay,' my friend says, ‘that's good advice.' He's a bit of a chancer, you know, and he ended the conversation by asking the priest, putting on a cute-hoor accent, ‘And what sport do you play yourself, father?' He said you'd want to see the look he got! Never answered the question, though!

5 May 2010

Customer:
You know the way St Patrick got rid of the snakes in Ireland and was canonised later on?

Barber:
Sure we all know that.

Customer:
Well, I wonder, in light of all that's happened with the church, you know, the abuse and scandals and all, if Cromwell will be regarded in a different light in a few hundred years by the historians. He tried to get rid of the priests in Ireland and used to burn down the churches during the Penal times.

Barber:
I'm not so sure they'd see it that way!