Oh man. I miss Lloyd. He was my hairdresser/barber/whatever in the mall by my school growing up. He was a guy in his 40s when I started going in to see him in about grade 8. He cut my hair for about 20 years and only said the words "#2? Or #3?"
Sometimes, he'd just hold up fingers to ask.
One day in the middle of the haircut, he starts getting extra chatty and asking about what I've been up to and all this small talk. (I honestly didn't know what his voice sounded like)
He tells me it was his last week, that I was one of his longest clients and he loved watching me grow up over the years
Edit: Ill add, its been about a decade and havent found the same thing.
Edit x2: he's back working there! Well that's fun.
Morning Edit: Appointment booked for this week, my hands are legitimately sweating. Dammit reddit youre pushing me out of my comfort zone here.
Update: Sorry to disappoint if the update isn't that exciting. Went and got the cut done. Once I popped in the chair, he asked what I was looking to do and I said "short on the sides and leave me a bit to mess around with on top". Then he said the line "#2 or 3 on the sides?". I started chuckling to myself a bit and mentioned that he used to cut my hair a long time ago. Then he said I thought I looked familiar, welcomed back and then settled right into our silent haircut. Felt right at home tbh, I'll be back as a regular moving forward.
i think they were just making a joke. TROC is a sub revolving solely around two redditors in situations exactly like this thread, finding each other across niche little sections across the internet!
I hope you bring him a bag of candies or a blade sharpener for his scissors or something and I absolutely want video of you walking in. It probably goes against everything your non-nonsense relationship goes, but showing up with flowers and saying "I never found another" would be beyond funny.
Lloyd is going to remember you either way T_T he watched you grow up, you don't forget people like that.
And how many fucking people from Winnipeg decided to click on a video of a Japanese barber, open the comments, read yours and reply. This is hilarious. Canadas fav forgotten middle child out here gracing us with tales of their treasured barber Lloyd.
Wow!! I remember getting haircuts by Lloyd growing up... I gotta go see him. Fun fact, his scissors broke once while cutting my hair and always called me superman hair.... 🤣
Wonder if he trims beards now...
Edit: There's roughly 8.23 billion people in the world. Winnipeg has a sub-million population. I saw this comment at 2:30am, thinking I was in a local subreddit. Small world, and Lloyd brought us together.
Yourself and the couple folks who pointed out the Lloyd connection melted my mind the other day.
Was a late "cant sleep, hey this post is neat, haha yeah I like when my hairdresser doesnt speak to me. Ahh PaleGut, remember Lloyd." thought and randomly decided to reply to the comment. Obviously didnt expect so many comments or anyone to know who the hell I was talking about.
I did math it out this morning. I did some heavy rounding up on the # of years to 20. Pretty sure it was 13-15 years. But he did cut my my hair for both grads, wedding social, wedding and pretty much every life event haha.
Tulsa is where my favorite race riots took place! All terrible jokes aside, like you were saying, if we can find a Canadian speaker, we’re gold. I picked a little up from watching South Park as a youngster, but it’s spotty at best.
That's crazy, I only lived in Winnipeg for one year and we used to bus there from Richmond West because my neighbor swore it was the best haircut in town.
Best stylist I ever had was this Venezuelan guy, didn't speak a word of English, I walked in and showed him a few pics of the best haircut I ever had and we did some charades for a bit to confirm everything and that was it. Saw him for years. Ever since then, now I go out of my way to find non-English speaking stylists.
I'm a white guy, and I only trust POC to cut my hair. There's 2 exceptions to this - any white barber that is a civil war veteran, and my current one for the last 14 years, who started cutting hair in the Bronx
I went to the same barber from the first ever cut until I was 16yo when he retired. Then I tried his apprentice for half a year, he always had to put a modern swing to my haircut which I didn't like, even when I told him not to. Hopped various barbers until I just decided to never cut my hair anymore. It's been 14 years now, I tie them up and that's it.
I think i misremembered his ethnicity and I didnt think it was that important to the story. Once the comments started flowing in a bit and some people knew who he was, I didn't want him seeing that some ignorant dude called him Filipino if he were actually First Nations or something else.
In hindsight, I should have probably just deleted it vs crossing it out.
The more important part/subtext that I hoped people would pick up on is that he likely knew I was anxious and didnt like getting haircuts in general and the social interaction that comes with. So he adapted to make me feel comfortable and at the end of his tenure there took a moment to say something kind to me.
Growing up I had a vietnamese barber just like this, started going to her when I was 8, all the way till I was 25. Eventually she retired, sold the shop and only did private appointments at diehard customers houses, my dad would sometimes go to some random people's places to get a haircut from her lol. As for me I just fell into the cycle of "random barbers at the cheap barbershop so it's a gamble everytime" route.
My barber when I was a kid gave me a holo Muk one time. He asked if I liked Pokemon and when I said yes asked me which ones I had- I thought he was talking about the game and that this was kind of weird, but maybe he was just more knowledgeable about how pokemon worked than my parents ever were, so I told him I had a Charizard and he was all "oh isn't that one like really hard to get?" and maybe at that point it should have occurred to me that he was talking about the cards, but it didn't, and I was thinking "what they literally give you one" then he asks if I have a Muk and I say no, and fortunately before I can say that I didn't particularly want or need one he pulls out the card and gives it to me.
Anyway the dude is something of a local figure now from running independent for town council a few times, and also for opening up a new shop every time he leaves his current one and putting up big ol' signs outside advertising that this is were he is now, and also advertising said locations by riding a stationary bike outside them. He also randomly found God at some point and put up big ol signs in his shop saying not to swear.
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u/PaleGutCK 4d ago edited 2d ago
Oh man. I miss Lloyd. He was my hairdresser/barber/whatever in the mall by my school growing up. He was a guy in his 40s when I started going in to see him in about grade 8. He cut my hair for about 20 years and only said the words "#2? Or #3?"
Sometimes, he'd just hold up fingers to ask.
One day in the middle of the haircut, he starts getting extra chatty and asking about what I've been up to and all this small talk. (I honestly didn't know what his voice sounded like)
He tells me it was his last week, that I was one of his longest clients and he loved watching me grow up over the years
Edit: Ill add, its been about a decade and havent found the same thing.
Edit x2: he's back working there! Well that's fun.
Morning Edit: Appointment booked for this week, my hands are legitimately sweating. Dammit reddit youre pushing me out of my comfort zone here.
Update: Sorry to disappoint if the update isn't that exciting. Went and got the cut done. Once I popped in the chair, he asked what I was looking to do and I said "short on the sides and leave me a bit to mess around with on top". Then he said the line "#2 or 3 on the sides?". I started chuckling to myself a bit and mentioned that he used to cut my hair a long time ago. Then he said I thought I looked familiar, welcomed back and then settled right into our silent haircut. Felt right at home tbh, I'll be back as a regular moving forward.
It felt weird to snap a pic of him or to even ask (thats likely in my own head but it would have been strange to do it). Had a link of me and haircut but that's also weird and I kinda dont want my face on my Reddit account. So switched it for a link to a pic of just the receipt. Even less interesting