Jack the Ripper Takes a Whack at a Haircut

JUST when I thought Jack might be leaning toward being a food critic, perhaps even a chef (see June 1 posting,), because of his culinary tastes, he takes a whack at being a hairstylist (and shows his lack of taste in that arena).
Well, more precisely, he took a whack at his own hair. I haven’t seen the damage yet, but to hear Mom tell it, he wielded the scissors on his locks like Lizzie Borden did her ax on her folks — taking 40 whacks at her mom and then, when she saw what she had done, she gave the old man 41.
I was going to post a YouTube video of the scene — Lizzie’s smacking, not Jack’s whacking — but my devilish side lost to my angelic one, which pleaded that it was: Just. Too. Gruesome. So I opted for something from Alfred Hitchcock:



Back to Jack, the ripper, of hair: In the blink of Melissa’s eye, the lad morphed from being a finely coiffed gentleman who had served as a ring bearer, along with older bro Vincent, only three days previously to looking more like a rugby ruffian who had lost great gobs of hair in a scrum.

Ringbearers Jack (left) and Vincent flank the flower girl, Olivia, as they parade in for our wedding.

“I may have to resort to getting him a buzz cut for the summer,” his mother wailed into the phone as she told me about spots where the hair was within a half-inch of his scalp.
Oddly enough — and perhaps I should feel guilty about this, but I don’t — his ring-bearer duties when Kate and I married were intimately connected to his dome’s demise. After all, it’s partly the recent kindergarten grad’s fault.
He and his brothers had enjoyed playing with Flarp so much at my mom’s recent birthday party (so what if she died in’50; I recently discovered he actual birth date so we decided to celebrate her 93rd birthday) that Kate and I decided to spread some joy at the family dinner the night before our wedding.
So we passed out Flarp to each and every person there (even those who might not have needed a canister to produce the effect.
But wait! Perhaps I should digress, on the off chance that one or two of the few people reading this doesn’t know what Flarp is.
Basically, it’s the modern version of a whoopee cushion, and it looks like Play-Doh. Except, when you play with this dough, it makes a flatulating sound. I suppose that its name comes from the first three letters of flatulating, although I have no idea where the “rp” comes from
Whatever the etymology of the word, kids love Flarp, and adults love it, because it lets them act like kids. (Plus, you can eat beans and then use Flarp as a cover.)
Let me digress a bit more, and regale you with my story of how hard it can be to obtain sometimes.
I didn’t want to buy it in Florida, where I knew a Target store that carries it, because I was afraid some airport security official might think it was C-4 and toss me into Gitmo, as long as it’s still open.
A worker at the Target I wandered into in Iowa said his store is too small for that product (not enough space for the brraaaaaaaap?), but he obviously has kids because he knew what it was. So I called the Wal-mart and asked one of the rollback people whether he had Flarp.
“Nope, but we’ve got Whoopee,” he said. “It’s the same thing.”
He allowed as how it’s the same price as Flarp, a buck for a canister that has too much of the gel substance to be able to carry onto a plane, so I asked whether he had 35.
Not even close, he said, but I was bound and determined to get some party Flarpy favors, so I headed to the store.
Once there, I figured I was talking to the same price roll-backer in the toy department as I’d talked to on the phone.
“Where’s the Whoopee?” I inquired, drawing a blank stare.
“What’s Whoopee?” he countered.
“It‘’s like Flarp,” I replied. “You know, kids use it to … ”
“I know what Flarp is,” he said, rolling his eyes and motioning a couple of aisles over.
To my surprise, and delight, there was enough Flarp there to level half of Dubuque, Iowa, so I snapped it up.
It went over like gangbusters at the dinner; at least IMHO, as the kids text and tweet and twitter. Makes a guy wonder why EVERYBODY doesn’t hand out Flarp at rehearsal dinners to have a Whoopee of a good time.
Lest you think I’ve sidetracked myself to the end of oblivion, never to return, let’s get back to the beginning of the story: Jack the Barber.
It seems the lad got great gobs of Flarp in his hair and, instead of letting his mom handle it, he decided to put his locks on the chopping block by himself. Whackadoodle, he looked like a poodle, with a bad haircut.
Sorry I don’t have a photo to share the destruction, but after all, the kid’s got feelings. Suffice it to say he won’t be making a Brylcreem commercial anytime soon.
But for a fitting end — split ends, in Jack’s case — I bring you “Hair,” which should grow back by the time the lad is ready to enter first grade: