He asks me this while he fiddles with his iPad before moving to his iPhone for extra fiddling. The plastic poncho for my shoulders almost forgotten when he picks up his scissors.
I tell him what I do...and immediately - before he even responds - swallow a strong instinct to bolt. This guy is not my usual barber. He's a horrible facsimile of a barber. In fact, he may not even be a barber. What if he's a Larper?
I notice a poorly inked yin-yang tattoo on his forearm. Are Daoists offended by bad yin-yang tattoos?
I have the perfect idea for a story, he says. I have these ideas all the time. They just come to me. Some day I need to write them down myself 'cause it'll probably make me rich. I'm actually a stage actor in real life. I've directed my own plays and I know people. I could get any play I wrote performed, no problem.
What's the idea? Again, I regret opening my mouth.
You know Alice in Wonderland?
Never heard of it.
Well, it's a children's boo...oh, you're kidding. Anyway, you take the characters from the book and put them in an old folks' home. Sort of a where are they now type thing. You name them Ali - short for Alice, Cheesh short for Cheshire Cat and they sit around and talk about the old days.
You mean the cat's there too?
And the rabbit.
Doesn't that seem odd to have a talking cat and rabbit in an old folks' home?
Well, maybe they're a little senile.
Alright.
Anyway, they talk about how pissed off they are with the care they're receiving and how they want to escape back down the rabbit hole.
Are they in wheel chairs?
What?
Nothing.
Well, if you want to write this and you wind up making millions, I'll take a 2% cut.
Sounds more than fair.
How could I argue with the guy? He had scissors to my head and he smelled vaguely of cough medicine. Never trust a man who smells of cough medicine. I'm sure that's a basic rule somewhere.
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