Sarah: Hello?

Couch Baron: Hey there! How’s the hair?

Sarah: It’s…it’s not good. It’s just not good at all.

Couch Baron: Uh oh. What happened?

Sarah: I walked in…I got shampooed…I sat down in the chair…and then everyone learned a very important lesson about not ever admitting to your stylist that you’re from Jersey.

Couch Baron: Oh, dear.

Sarah: Yeeeeeah. I? Look like a satellite dish.

Couch Baron: Ohhhhh, dear. So you haven’t tried to fix it yet, I take it.

Sarah: Dude. I can’t even run my hand through it. There’s that much product on my head right now.

Couch Baron: Wow.

Sarah: I know. It’s one of those haircuts that, after you stop crying, you start making up superhero names for yourself based on the haircut.

Couch Baron: Hee. I’ve had those haircuts. “Behold — Dark Toilet Brush!”

Sarah: Hee. Exactly. “For I am The Human Bonnet!”

Couch Baron: And then you give yourself that little pep talk about how it’ll grow out.

Sarah: Oh, sure. And I think it’ll actually look pretty good, this one, if I can get a belt sander in here and file it down a bit.

Couch Baron: It’ll look great, I’m sure.

Sarah: You know, that’s what’s so frustrating — it looked great during the cutting process, and it looked great most of the way through the blow-dry, and then the products came out and I just froze.

Couch Baron: Oh, that’s the worst feeling. You know you should speak up, but you can’t.

Sarah: I know! He’s got a puff of mousse the size of a duck in his palm, and yet you still tell yourself, “Oh, it’s fine! He’s a trained professional! Nothing to worry about!”

Couch Baron: Well, after The Arsenio Incident, I finally just started telling them, look, I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes, so just cut it really quickly and I’ll gel it myself in the cab.

Sarah: See…no. I can’t do that.

Couch Baron: Why not? Try it the next time.

Sarah: But the thing is —

Couch Baron: Just tell the guy, I’ve got a conference call at three, so just cut it real quick and I’ll take it from there. Trust me, it’s so worth it.

Sarah: No, I know, but the thing is that I did try it, the last time, and he totally knew I was lying.

Couch Baron: So what? It’s not a Congressional hearing.

Sarah: But that’s the thing — he just cut it, no styling, but then the style only held for, like, a week.

Couch Baron: So…so what, now?

Sarah: So he did that on purpose! His cuts always hold for at least a month!

Couch Baron: Maybe it’s just a coinci–

Sarah: Oh, please. It was not a coincidence. I got into the chair and I said, “You know, I’m in kind of a rush today, so I was wondering, could you just cut it and then I’ll blow it out myself at home?” And he got that look.

Couch Baron: Oh, the look.

Sarah: You know the look I’m talking about.

Couch Baron: The “bitch, you crazy” look.

Sarah: That’s the one.

Couch Baron: And then he tried to upsell you on the styling anyway.

Sarah: Well, sure — that’s his job, so, fine. But I stood my ground and said, honey, I have to get out of here by two-thirty, so just the cut, that’s it.

Couch Baron: And he said okay, but he gave the guy at the next station a look in the mirror, right?

Sarah: Ohhhh yeah. The “bitch crazy for real” look.

Couch Baron: And the guy at the next station gave him a look back like “well, you tried to tell her, ‘bitch, you crazy for real,’ but if she won’t listen…”

Sarah: Exaaaactly. Which I thought I was imagining, but then, the whole time he was cutting, he was talking to me in this tone of voice like I’d just fainted or hit my head or something.

Couch Baron: You knew you were in trouble.

Sarah: Well, kind of. I thought he was offended, maybe, or thought I was an idiot, but I didn’t think anything would actually happen even though I know they started talking about me right after I left, and then, like a week later, the cut starts acting up! It looked like a mushroom! And do I have any recourse? No.

Couch Baron: See, this is why I go to a barber now. It’s always so political at the salon. You say no to highlights in the wrong tone of voice, the next thing you know you’ve got Derek Jeter hair.

Sarah: God, I know. It’s so unfair. It’s blackmail, is what it is.

Couch Baron: Or battered woman’s syndrome.

Sarah: They always tell you in the magazines, if you don’t like the cut, make them fix it. Like that’s an actual option.

Couch Baron: Oh, seriously. Because then you get the “oh, I’ll ‘fix it’ all right” look.

Sarah: Which is exactly what you want to see when your hair is already fucked up.

Couch Baron: Better to just come home and stick your head under a faucet.

Sarah: Right. But — can you do that? Men? Or do you just have to wait for it to grow out? Because the Jeter hair, it seems like you’d better shave it all off and start over.

Couch Baron: Which is what I did. Nobody can get away with the Jeter hair but Jeter.

Sarah: Begging to diffah over here. Even Jeter can’t get away with the Jeter hair.

Couch Baron: Well…but it’s his hair.

Sarah: But it’s so bad! He’s really cute with his cap on, and then you see him in the dugout and Ch-ch-ch-chia!

Couch Baron: You don’t think it suits his face? In a topiary kind of way?

Sarah: No, I don’t. It’s fug. I don’t see why he doesn’t just shave it instead of shaping it all eraser-y like that.

Couch Baron: Maybe he has a lumpy head.

Sarah: Yeah, maybe. Or maybe he has David Justice head. That guy has the weirdest head ever.

Couch Baron: It’s round, and it’s pointy.

Sarah: I know! Not of this earth, that head. But what if Jeter did the semi-shaved thing — you know, where there’s a little hair?

Couch Baron: But then you could still see the shape of his head.

Sarah: Yeah, you’re right. Hey, maybe his head is actually flat on the top, like Herman Munster.

Couch Baron: It would explain a lot of things. Like Mariah Carey.

Sarah: Seriously.

Couch Baron: Oh, man, you know what we should do? You know those websites where you scan in a picture of yourself and then paste different hairstyles on your head?

Sarah: Oh, dude. That would rock.

Couch Baron: I’m sure we could find young Derek a decent hairstyle.

Sarah: [hack…bork…wheeze]

Couch Baron: Hello? Are you choking?

Sarah: [kaff kaff kaff] Heeeeeeee hee hee! [kaff kaff]

Couch Baron: Oh, I can’t wait to hear this one.

Sarah: [kaff] Whew, sorry. Diet Coke in my lung. Okay. Are you ready for this?

Couch Baron: I doubt it, but go ahead.

Sarah: Okay. Derek Jeter…with a Rachel.

Couch Baron: Hee.

Sarah: “Hee”? Only one “hee”? A Rachel! On Derek Jeter! Where’s the love?

Couch Baron: Oh, I’ve got the love. For Derek Jeter…with a Rick James.

Sarah: [snorf…kack kack kack]

Couch Baron: That is where the love is.

Sarah: [kaff kaff] He’s a very…[bork]…kinky girl. [kaff]

Couch Baron: The kind you don’t take home to Mothaaaaah!

Sarah: [kaff] Okay, I’m not picking up the Diet Coke again. Ooh, ooh! Derek Jeter with a Michael Jackson!

Couch Baron: Present-day Michael Jackson, or “Thriller”-era Michael Jackson?

Sarah: Oh my god, how can I choose? Okay, gotta go “Thriller.”

Couch Baron: Oh, wait, no — old-school Michael Jackson.

Sarah: Dude. You’re so, so right.

Couch Baron: I don’t know why we didn’t think of that sooner.

Sarah: I don’t either! Dude — Jeter with a fro. It’s so obvious.

Couch Baron: Not just a fro — a heeeeyuuuuge fro.

Sarah: A Justin Guarini fro…no. An Oscar Gamble fro.

Couch Baron: An early-Commodores fro.

Sarah: Dude, the Commodores had the best fros in history.

Couch Baron: I don’t know about that. Angela Davis had a pretty damn good fro.

Sarah: She did have a championship fro, it’s true. But the best group fro? Definitely the Commodores. Did you ever see Thank God It’s Friday?

Couch Baron: Is that the one where the guy from Dance Fever has a dance solo in the parking lot?

Sarah: Yeah yeah, that’s it. The Commodores in that movie…man. The outfits alone…but then the outfits and the fros? Awesome. In the original sense of inspiring awe.

Couch Baron: I hesitate to say this, but Lionel Richie with a fat old seventies fro? Pretty hot.

Sarah: Do not hesitate, my friend. Lionel Richie with a fat old seventies fro is all kinds of hot.

Couch Baron: But not so much the eighties demi-fro.

Sarah: Ew, no. And with the linen pants? Yuck. Full-on fro or no fro at all.

Couch Baron: We’ve just said the word “fro” many, many times.

Sarah: Yeah. Hee. “Fro.”

Couch Baron: So, it’s settled.

Sarah: What, Jeter? Yeah. Except now we have to convince him to actually get the fro.

Couch Baron: Maybe if we wrote him a letter?

Sarah: No, that won’t work — we’d just get back an auto-signed picture of him. A fro-free picture, no less.

Couch Baron: But if we scanned him into that site, and put on the fro, and printed out the picture and mailed that…

Sarah: With a little note like, “See? See how rad you look?”

Couch Baron: Yeah! But he doesn’t even read those things, I’m sure.

Sarah: Oh, I’m sure, but I bet his publicist shows him the really good ones, like if they’re really wacky and whatnot. So if ours is wacky enough…

Couch Baron: Yeah, maybe the publicist would show it to him like, ha ha, get this, these two nutbars think you should grow a fro — look, they even sent visual aids.

Sarah: Like, ha ha…but then…the seed of fro-tasticness is planted.

Couch Baron: And he thinks to himself, well, I would look pretty awesome in a fro.

Sarah: That could work. The other strategy is to write to his girlfriend and get her to work on him to grow a fro.

Couch Baron: Or George Steinbrenner!

Sarah: Yeah! Wait, isn’t he the one who decided none of them could have facial hair?

Couch Baron: Ooh, good point. I don’t know.

Sarah: George might not go for the fro idea.

Couch Baron: George would look pretty awesome in a fro also.

Sarah: I challenge you to name one person who would not look pretty awesome in a fro. Seriously.

Couch Baron: My mom.

Sarah: Hee. Yeah, your mom — actually, no. I don’t accept that. Your mom could rock a fro.

Couch Baron: No, your mom could rock a fro.

Sarah: My mom has rocked a fro, dude.

Couch Baron: Your mom. Had a fro.

Sarah: Eighties perm technology? Not the most reliable. That’s all I’ll say.

Couch Baron: Yeeeow.

Sarah: Really. Now, my dad with a fro…that would pull us all into another dimension.

Couch Baron: Your dad could fro it up with the best of them.

Sarah: My dad wears khakis and golf shirts. Every day. Not the most fro-prone attire.

Couch Baron: I know, that’s the best part. Polo shirt. Dockers. Rockports. Reading glasses. Aaaaaaand fro.

Sarah: Hee.

Couch Baron: Yeah, now you feel me.

Sarah: It’s true. I do.

Couch Baron: How about you?

Sarah: Me in a fro, you mean? Never in a million years could I grow a fro. My hair’s too fine.

Couch Baron: But if you could.

Sarah: If I had fro capability, I would obviously grow one immediately.

Couch Baron: The mental image is delightful.

Sarah: It’s fro-errific, in fact. “She’s five ten –”

Couch Baron: “Six three with the afro.”

Sarah: Right on. Now excuse me, but why don’t you grow a fro?

Couch Baron: Girl, please.

Sarah: Oh, I’m sorry, what I meant to say was, “Couch Baron, you will grow a fro, right now. Please begin.”

Couch Baron: I have had a fro. Had. Past tense.

Sarah: Aw, come on. Please? For me? Your dear dear friend, who longs to grow her own fro, but cannot?

Couch Baron: I will not grow a surrogate fro.

Sarah: Please?

Couch Baron: No.

Sarah: Please?

Couch Baron: No.

Sarah: Pleeeeeease?

Couch Baron: No.

Sarah: All right, fine.

Couch Baron: I’ll show you pictures the next time I’m in New York. Then you’ll understand why I am fro-intolerant.

Sarah: Hee. While I am pro-fro.

Couch Baron: Oh, I’m pro-fro on other people, but for myself…

Sarah: You’re a fro-getarian.

Couch Baron: I’m fro-choice.

Sarah: I’m still not sick of saying “fro.”

Couch Baron: No, me neither.

Sarah: So should we write to Derek Jeter or what?

Couch Baron: You know who we need to write to, is Ben Affleck. What is going on with that guy’s hair?

Sarah: I really don’t know. I sincerely believe that it’s bulletproof. Point-blank range, kapow, he’s totally unharmed.

Couch Baron: But why doesn’t he do something about it? That’s what I don’t get. I mean, the guy’s rich, he’s with J.Lo — why hasn’t she said something?

Sarah: “Honey, we already have a Buster Poindexter.” Yeah, I don’t get that either. He had his teeth capped, why not deal with the hair?

Couch Baron: It’s just so…Jersey. No offense.

Sarah: Oh, none taken — it’s totally Jersey, but that’s what’s so odd. It’s Jersey from, like, eight years ago, and he’s not even from Jersey!

Couch Baron: Maybe it’s a Boston thing?

Sarah: Maybe, but really — you could rap it with your knuckles and hurt yourself.

Couch Baron: And I don’t think that’s his natural hair.

Sarah: Well, whose “natural hair” is particle board?

Couch Baron: No, I mean that it doesn’t always look like that. Like in Dazed & Confused — it was just normal.

Sarah: And curly, I know. I think he’d be fine if he just stopped trying to straighten it.

Couch Baron: We should tell him that.

Sarah: “Dear Ben: It’s called ‘Tigi BedHead.’ Please please look into it. Signed, the world.”

Couch Baron: “P.S. Or you could grow a fro. Just an idea.”

Sarah: He and J.Lo could get matching fros.

Couch Baron: J.Fro!

Sarah: Bennifro!

Couch Baron: Hee. Hey, I just thought of someone who would look awful in a fro.

Sarah: Go.

Couch Baron: Dwight Yoakam.

Sarah: Wow…no, I think Dwight Yoakam would look hilarious in a fro, actually. With a little cowboy hat perched on top of it? Hello?

Couch Baron: Yeah, good point. Now, Prince Charles…that’s a fro that’s not going to work.

Sarah: Again, I have to disagree. The more absurd the idea, the better I like it. It goes both ways.

Couch Baron: I don’t understand.

Sarah: Okay, let’s see…okay, Donald Faison. Donald Faison is going to look good in a fro. He’s a handsome African-American man, he’s stylish, he can and will work the fro.

Couch Baron: Donald Faison could work a Rachel.

Sarah: Boy is hot, that’s my point. But if someone is culturally non-fro on the surface, then it works even better.

Couch Baron: Cognitive dissonance.

Sarah: Exactly. So I still feel that there’s nobody you can’t picture with a fro and get something positive from the experience, ironically or otherwise. Shaquille O’Neal with a fro? Works. Dick Cheney with a fro? Works.

Couch Baron: Dick Cheney with a fro.

Sarah: If Dick Cheney had a fro, we’d live in a different world, I’d bet.

Couch Baron: Donald Rumsfeld with a fro.

Sarah: Completely different world.

Couch Baron: You know, I think you’re right. There’s nobody you can’t mentally put in a fro and feel good about it.

Sarah: Even William Fichtner passes the fro test.

Couch Baron: That’s the real test — the famous boyfriends.

Sarah: Goran Visnjic plus fro equals good times.

Couch Baron: Hugo Weaving in a fro.

Sarah: Hee. Matrix: Frovolutions.

Couch Baron: I’d buy a ticket to that.

Sarah: So would I. Fishburne’s already got the fro credentials going in.

Couch Baron: Now, what about current boyfriends?

Sarah: Hee.

Couch Baron: Hee hee.

Sarah: Heeeee hee hee.

Couch Baron: Hee.

Couch Baron and Sarah: HA HA HA HA HAAAA!

Sarah: God, that’s funny.

Couch Baron: I know.

Sarah: He’d do it, too.

Couch Baron: Really?

Sarah: Yeah, maybe. He’d entertain the idea, at least.

Couch Baron: Hee.

Sarah: Hee hee. God. I wish I had a fro right now.

Couch Baron: It sounds like it’s kind of a fro.

Sarah: It’s not a fro. It’s a force field. Big difference there.

Couch Baron: Have you formulated a plan?

Sarah: Well, after I shower and rinse out the ten pounds of driveway sealant in my hair, I guess I’ll try to style it, but god knows what it’s going to look like.

Couch Baron: It’ll be fine. You could always go to another salon and have them try to fix it.

Sarah: And get in even deeper? I don’t think so. Hey, have you ever gone to Supercuts?

Couch Baron: No.

Sarah: Is that the “I never happen to have gone to a Supercuts, but I have nothing against the place” kind of “no,” or the “clearly you’ve lost your mind, let us never speak of this again” kind of “no”?

Couch Baron: It’s a little of both.

Sarah: Oh.

Couch Baron: When a place of business shows up in stand-up routines that often…

Sarah: Yeah, yeah, I hear you. But Tempus got a sassy cut there.

Couch Baron: Tempus is a guy. Guy haircuts are a whole different thing.

Sarah: Yeah.

Couch Baron: Look, don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be fine once you get it down next to your head again.

Sarah: Probably. On the plus side, at least it’s not frizzing. It can’t.

Couch Baron: Heh. I can’t say I really miss New York in August.

Sarah: It’s like a rainforest, but without the forest.

Couch Baron: I remember. Blech.

Sarah: What’s the weather like over there?

Couch Baron: Oh, you know. English.

Sarah: I would kill for a nice dank fog right about now.

Couch Baron: No, you wouldn’t.

Sarah: Oh, but I would. The fall catalogs have started coming in the mail, and I know I shouldn’t leaf through them because looking at the wool sweaters makes me itchy, but I can’t help it. I miss my corduroys.

Couch Baron: I miss socks.

Sarah: Mmm, socks. And blankets.

Couch Baron: And mittens.

Sarah: Aw, mittens. God, what am I saying? I practically just put away my mittens! I never wanted to see them again!

Couch Baron: It’s the humidity talking.

Sarah: Probably. And the hair.

Couch Baron: And the hair.

Sarah: And speaking of the hair, I’d better go. This could take a while.

Couch Baron: Godspeed.

August 4, 2003

Tags:   friends