Shaun Lewis: the Man, the Myth, the Legend

It’s Monday.

Everything has gone wrong today. When I say “wrong,” I don’t mean horribly wrong, I mean little annoyances. To start the day off, I woke up later than I had originally intended. I wanted to wake up @ 8:30, but instead I woke up at around 10. This is a problem because I did have to get a hair cut before class, after all. So, I shaved and took a shower. Naturally, because it was Little Annoyance Day, when I got out of the shower, the rod holding the shower curtain fell on me and ridpped a piece of trim off the wall. It hurt, but I was OK. After that little incident, I headed towards the barber shop to get a haircut.

I arrived at Mean Gene’s (that’s how the barber is known colloquially in my town—he’s not mean, just really awesome) and prepared myself for a long wait in line. There wasn’t a lot of people in front, but Gene is old and cuts hair with all the speed and momentum of a glacier. Actually, the only person in front of me was in the barber seat when I walked through the door. He was a little “slow,” I decided, because he was with his mom and had a stuffed animal in his hands. Also, he looked like he was about 16. I sat down and read my newspaper while whoever this guy was got his hair cut. After he was through, I sat down in the chair and waited for Gene to finish his transaction with the mother. As I sat in the chair, my nose twinged and I realized I had just sat down in a chair where someone took a dump.

Not a figurative “dump,” but rather a real-life crap in someone’s pants. I quickly glanced upwards with a contorted face at the mother and child across the room paying Gene. I couldn’t believe what was going on. In fact, I was positive I was hallucinating—that is, until my nose got another great, big wiff of that smell again. In my mind, I said, “Oh, bloody hell.”

Now, when one sits in a chair that smells (esp. of poo), one wants to jump out of it as fast as one can. I wanted to, and believe me, I would have done just that if it were not that the boy and his mother were still in the room. I didn’t want to start jumping and yelling about the room and insulting the poor child who couldn’t hold his waste back. It won’t be long, I thought. I’ll just wait for them to exit, tell Gene I think the chair stinks and have him wash it before he puts the apron around my neck. Surely, he’ll smell the poo. So, I waited.

Gene eventually came over to me and put the apron around my neck and started getting ready to cut my hair. The boy and his mother were still there, so I waited a bit more. The inner turmoil I felt as I waited was indescribable. I wanted nothing more than to leap out of the twisted world in which I was immersed. I fidgeted until the gruesome twosome left and immediately fell upon Gene with my questioning. “Man, I think I smell something,” I said quickly.
“Mmm,” said Gene as he cut my hair.
“It almost smells like… like poop or something.”
“Mmm,” Gene retorted.
“Do you smell it too? I think it’s like on the chair or something,” I lashed back at Gene confident of my victory.
“No, I don’t smell anything,” he said and continued cutting my hair.

I was defeated. Sure, I could’ve done everything I described before and leaped from the chair screaming like a man in a panic, but it seemed there was little Gene would do to save me. So, I sat in the chair for as short of a time as I possibly could, avoided touching the armrests, and leaped out as soon as Gene was finished. Finally, I paid Gene, walked out to my car, smelled my clothes and was disgusted. The poo stench was with me.

Alarms went off in my head. Sirens rang out all the over place and I could see myself walking down the street; wherever I went people fainted due to the fetid odor I had unwillingly befriended; children cried and mothers ran away coddling their babies and screaming for help.

I drove home and tried to elevate my butt from the car seat to avoid contamination. Upon my arrival at my abode, I derobed as quickly as I could and jumped into the shower for the second time in less than two hours.

1 intensive shower and 15 minutes later, I walked out of the bathroom stench-free, but brutally self-concious of my smell. Throughout this whole day I’ve been smelling myself, checking to make sure I wasn’t followed by a belligerent and lingering odor. I acquiesced to defeat so quickly today in that chair, I am shamed to say. Never again will that happen and never again will I not smell my seat before I sit down.

Oh—I should mention the worst part of this story. When I sat in the barber’s chair, I was wearing my favorite pair of pants and my favorite shirt. I fear I will never be able to look at them again without disgust.

That’s all until later.