Wait, what did you say?

I am about the very last person you could call a minion of god.  But wait until you read what happened today.

I went in for my semi annual haircut and was guided to a chair by a beautiful young woman.  As she draped the cape around me she was talking with her coworker at the next chair.  She was complaining about a customer who had given her a hard time.  Apparently the woman was more than a customer because the barber/beautician was saying she had been to this woman's house and done favors for her and the woman had apparently treated her very poorly.  She also said the woman was suffering from cancer and had just had a double mastectomy. Kidding, she threatened to shave one side of the woman's head when she came in again.

She finally calmed down and asked me how my day was going.  It being a beautiful crisp fall day, I asked her what could go wrong on a day like that.  She offered some polite response and just kidding I said, and I am going to be very nice to you.  It was loud enough I guess that others heard me.  She asked why and I said I don't want to do something to get on your bad side with those clippers in your hand.  "You mean like carving my initials in the back of your head?" she asked with a giggle. One person you never anger is a barber. I heard a laugh from somewhere behind me.

She laughed too. Whew.  Then I went somewhere else.

I said it probably is none of my business and I certainly don't know the woman you are talking about but, I have a friend who is suffering a very serious type of cancer, and she gets testy and angry now and then and says things in anger that I know she doesn't mean.  And isn't anger the first stage in that Kubler-Ross litany about disease. It is the disease and the drugs talking, and I take that in stride and let it pass.  Try giving her a little room to be angry, she is going through a tough time.

Then the woman barber said something I never would have expected: "You know," she said, "sometimes I think God puts someone in my chair for a reason.  Thank you."

Wait, what did she say?  Now, go back and read that sentence again slowly.  That's how long it took what she said to register in my mind.  Me? Placed there by God?

It's a good thing my head was down while she was running the clippers over the back of my neck so no one could see my reaction. As responses raced through my mind, I eventually settled on not saying anything.

But, as she finished and took the cape off me, I stood up to give them the full impact of my 70 years and to ease the emotion I was feeling, told the, now, five women who were listening, "And, I am taking her to a Lady Gaga concert."  Get this.  They didn't laugh.  The youngest of them said, "that's funny" but the rest smiled and just said things sincerely like "that's great."  One of them even said, "wow, everybody loves Lady Gaga."

Who could have expected a trip to the barber would inspire such an impact on an old, bald guy?