Laughter in the kitchen

My wife told me she’d done the sides and wanted me to do the back: she was referring to trimming her hair.

Certainly, mon petit chou, I said, assuming one of my several roles, on this occasion, Bernard of Bordeaux. Bernard is a stylist (whatever that may be) and strives to be up-market, which means that he places the stress on the second syllable of his name – BerNARD. He really is very smooth, with a suspicion of French in his background. When deigning to speak he is not unlike Pepé Le Pew.

Lust (Photo credit: annalise.ellen)

So far so good and, though I say so myself, he does quite a good job. And then he remembered an affliction from his youth, when the barber held a mirror behind his head and asked him what he thought. Since the barber had taken off his glasses at the outset the better to operate his shears, the young Bernard couldn’t see a thing and always mumbled something to the effect that everything seemed fine.

This morning, Bernard having finished his task, fetched a mirror and held it behind his wife’s head, asking her the same question. He was dismayed by her response: she was quaking with laughter. When she recovered he asked her what was so funny.

She pointed out that hairdressers had mirrors on their walls, which we did not, so holding up a mirror behind her head didn’t cut it (so to speak). Like the young Bernard of old, she couldn’t see a thing.