The Whackemal Chop Shop

            My barber Ernestine is an absolute love despite also being a smart-alice.  She told me once she thought she’d never see me again because I had so many hare-brained ideas, my hair was growing in, not out. So I decided to nickname her ‘snippy’.  She ended that right now by threatening to snip my ears.  She’s all business, that woman—said she grew up on a farm where nonsense usually had negative consequences.

            “Nonsense,” I said.  “Tell me a joke or I won’t sit still—the one about the seven-year-old who threw his tricycle through the drugstore window—it’s my favorite!”

            She finished cutting my hair and held up the mirror.  Her work was flawless.

            “Great,” I said, “now, I’m off to the State Fair!”  I handed her a fist full of crumpled bills.

          “Thank you,” Ernestine replied with a grimace.  “You know I learned to cut hair by grooming chickens for the State Fair.” 

          “Ernestine Whackemal,” I exclaimed, “you are lying through your dazzling white teeth!” I always try to throw in a compliment when I accuse people of things.

          “You’re a city boy aren’t you,” she retorted.

          “I know you don’t give a chicken a haircut!  You…you fluff it!

          “Yeah, well don’t wander too close to the chicken judging when you leave here.  Somebody’s liable to stick a blue ribbon on your shirt!”

           I gave her the usual twenty cent tip and left the Whackemal Chop Shop feeling pretty gritty for a city chicken.