Jokes I Never Want to Hear Again

1. That’s what she said.

2. Your Mum....

3. Must be free then. (Heard from old people in stores when something doesn’t scan. More on shopping another time....)

4. Any Amy Winehouse joke involving the word, “rehab.”

5. Your Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.

6. Any Scribe joke involving the words, “not many, if any.”

7. Any joke trading on tired gender cliches, e.g.: women can’t drive, men don’t listen, etc.

8. So’s your face. (Scrubs looks pretty tired now, huh? It’s the Friends of the 00’s - funny and sexy in its day but incredibly dated a decade on. Now we’ve got Two and a Half Men. We’d blog about that but it would be easier to tear strips off than an Adidas rugby jersey. It’s below us.)

9. Nek minute.

10. Flight of the Conchords. I was sick of the references to "business socks" halfway through 2008. Why do you insist on ruining (a) FOTC and (b) my impression of you by pushing the same lines? Look, Bret and Jemaine aren't completely shit. All credit to them for success. Let's give some context though. North Americans, would they be as funny if they weren't from New Zealand? Kiwis, would they be as funny if America hadn't told you it was OK to like them? Are their lines really so great that they're still funny even though 2012 is fast approaching? Is Bret McKenzie's Muppets' theme not a piss-poor excuse for a song?

11. Any reference to Spinal Tap. Don’t tell me about turning things up to 11. That was funny when I was 16. A decade later, not so much. The fact that we’re the same age and you still find it funny says one of two things:

(a) when I was a teenager I had the sense of humour of someone in their mid-twenties; or

(b) in your mid-twenties, you have the sense of humour of a teenager.

Me and Shauny don’t like ambiguity so we’ll spell it out for you. You haven’t developed.

Dear readers, is there anything we've missed?

Getting a Haircut

I’ll qualify this statement first. Getting haircuts in Korea was actually quite pleasant. Sure, the staff at the salon would jockey to try and avoid cutting my hair cos they figured that I wouldn’t speak any Korean and that would make it awkward but eventually the poor unfortunate would be chosen and they’d get the job done. They were always efficient and accurate and they could follow my simple instruction: “베컴 머리를 주세요.” I don’t care what shitty Google translate tells you, that basically means, “please give me Beckham hair” (referring to the iconic faux-hawk) and that is what they’d do. We’d make small talk in Korean (read: I’d do my best to practice/flirt) and I’d get a great haircut from a pretty woman for a laughably cheap price.

All of this begs the question, why is getting my haircut in New Zealand so damn unpleasant? Let’s start with the store atmosphere. Why the fuck are you playing Gin Wigmore? Why are The Cardinals (her backing band) such suckers for punishment? I thought working with Ryan bloody Adams would be insufferable enough. Wah wah wah, New York street corners, roses, drugs, girls I used to know, girls called Rose I used to know, Mandy freaking Moore, wah wah wah. That’s Ryan but at least when he got it right (note the past tense) he was world class. What the fuck does Gin fucking Wigmore offer? My ears aren’t cheese so there’s no reason to be so grating. At least in Korea the music was excruciating in a language I couldn't understand.

Then again, I should’ve known the interior would be as tasteless as the sign on your exterior. Why is it hairdressers cannot resist pigeonholing themselves with vocational puns in the names of their stores? Here are some excruciating examples:

-Hair's to you!

-Hairport Salon

-Headquarters

-Getting Ahead

-British Hairways

-Shear Excitement

-Fringe Benefits

-Comb One Comb All

-Locks of Fun

-Mane Man

-Julius Scissor

-Barber Blacksheep

-The Brady Scrunch

-Curl Up and Dye

Really, the first cut is the cheapest? Shoot me now.

Secondly, my aforementioned faux hawk is a pretty straightforward style. Beckham had one which meant half of the All Blacks had one which means every male in New Zealand has had one or thought about having one. Every hairdresser in the country must have styled one before so how come when I ask for “short on the sides, a bit longer on top and at the back” I get a blank stare? Why do you want to know what setting the razor should be on and what style of scissor technique to use? Why can’t I just say “make my hair 8 weeks shorter than it is now? Why can’t you understand that I want it as short as you can possibly get it with some semblance of my preferred style so as to maximise the time between insufferable haircuts?

Thirdly, must we talk to each other? You’ve already suggested you have nothing to offer by playing Gin fucking Wigmore in your establishment which should never have been called 'Hair, Thair and Everywair.' All conversing with me will do is prove it. I don’t want to make small talk about my studies. “Oh political science, do you want to be a politician?” No. None of us do, at least in the foreseeable future. I don’t want to talk about Christchurch. My family are fine, thank you very much for asking, but I swear to God, if you ask me which school I went to I’ll stab you in the cock with your own scissors. I also don’t want to talk about the rugby. No one ever talks about rugby, they just recycle a string of meaningless cliches and newspaper headlines. Do us both a favour and forget the small talk.

Look, hairdressers, I know you’re removing an unsightly growth from my head but this isn’t brain surgery. It really shouldn’t be this hard. I want a hairCUT, not a re-style, not a perm, not a colouring, not a treatment, not dreads, not scalp waxing, not a word shaved into my head, not a head massage and not a million bloody questions on how to do your job. Give me a shorter version of what I’ve got. Sheesh, imagine what I’d say if I actually received a bad haircut....

So what do you think? Is going to hairdresser more stressful than it should be and is this entirely their fault?