Captive Audience

I spent my entire teaching "career" (in quotes, and deservedly so) working part-time, or short-term full-time, stints as a math instructor at a number of colleges -- seven, if you're curious about the actual number. And that was great, as long as my wife was also working... but then she quit her job and we moved to Ohio so she could go to seminary. Suddenly the part-time dollars were not providing a comfort zone.

So it was decided that I would need yet another part-time job (making 3, on my way to an eventual 4); the choices: waiting tables or reading meters for the power company. My wife's advice: go for the meters, so you won't have to talk to anyone. She was influenced, no doubt, by my less-than-inspiring efforts to support us as a waiter in the early months of our marriage -- but was also fully aware of my disdain for small talk and those false pleasantries that rake in the tips. Doubtless I was not destined, and certainly not particularly equipped, for a career in the food service industry; now imagine me as a practitioner of the cosmetological arts.

Yes, I got my hair cut yesterday, and my stylist (not that I can really be said to have a "style", before or after) had clearly gotten the directive that prohibits a licensed hair professional from leaving even a moment of silence. OK, I expect the usual topics:

• the weather
• where I live
• what I do for a living (in fact, they often seem affronted that I'm there in the middle of the day and not out being gainfully employed)

In this case, I was pleasantly surprised -- I got to talk baseball a little as well. Then that moment was over and off we went again: where my daughter went to preschool. Her frustration with hearing popular songs too often on the radio (I think she was hoping I could fix that, actually; it seems previous complaints to her boyfriend had proved ineffective).

The conversation, if you could call it that, hit a definite roadblock when she illustrated a Point About Hair by wordlessly gesturing to her own coif. Since I have to take off my glasses during a haircut, and since she wasn't sitting on my lap, her point was unfortunately lost on me.

Despite my distaste for the niceties of compulsory, meaningless byplay, I'm still able to be cordial and even appear to be participating... but I have my limits. When we suddenly veered to, "You know what we had last night? Pizza Hut!" I riffled through the available index cards for an appropriate response, but all I could come up with was (what I thought was a very thoughtful) "Huh."

On second thought, maybe I do have a future in cosmetology. I'd like to open a salon where the stylist asks you how you want it, and then is prohibited from speaking until "How's that look?" I can't be the only one who'd cheerfully pay extra for a few blissful moments of silence.