Another Hair Raising Halloween Story.....

I've been off work for the last two days so thus I have no stories from the restaurant floor. But instead, if you will indulge me, I offer you another story from the crazy days of Manuel's youth....

Last years halloween post was a picture of horror, literally a picture of horror. It has probably taken most of you a year to get over the sight of me lying drunk on the fireplace with my belly button exposed for all the world to gaze upon. Haven't seen it? Just click here, clicker beware though, it ain't a pretty sight!

But seeing as it has been a year I think you are ready for another snap from the Manuel family album.

behold the majesty that was my hair!
are you beholding?

As I've mentioned more than a few times before my hair was everything for me as a teenager. It really was all I had. My chums were bigger, taller, stronger and most importantly wittier than I. They had the quips, I had the quiff. I could fill you full of bunkum about it being my way of expressing individuality or how I was sticking it to the man but really it was all just about getting a girl, any girl. This, obviously, was a futile gesture as it got me absolutely nowhere with the ladies. Like it was ever going to!


But I needed it, the haircut that is. I need it too but that's a whole other post for another day. In my group of chums, associates and general ne'er-do-wells everybody had a thing, a bit, a role. Conor was the funny one. Daryl was the exotic one who had lived in the US, it also helped that he was rolling in money. Colm was the indie music one. And I was the one that lacked definition, so I shaved my hair and bought a can of hairspray. So I beacame the one with the hair. Or as I would become known as, toilet brush head. Ah the jokes and the constant ridicule, such happy days.

I heard them all from, "You just get a shock?" to "Oi mate, your hair is standing up!" to "What a wanker." Family can be so cruel. Oh yes the good people of Belfast weren't shy when it came to passing on their opinions and legendary wit with regard to my tremendous tuft. But still, I persevered with the daily ritual of back combing and spraying, so much spraying, a half can of hairspray a day to be precise. It's a good job I had a part time job. Although I did have to raid my grandmothers hairspray on more that a few occasions.

The rain rarely bothered it thanks to the hairspray but fire was a constant worry. For example there was the time when I was on the bus and the feral rats in tracksuits at the back took to flicking their lit cigarettes at it. I managed to get off the bus with my hair, but not my pride, still in tact.

I wasn't so fortunate though on one halloween night about 17/18 years ago. I was setting the mood, a goth mood, in my bedroom of the flash apartment I was living in. The Cure were crooning away on the stereo (crooning is probably not the right word) and the incense was masking the smell of teenage boy angst. I had a girl in my room and all was well. My hair was looking particularly erect and my velvet caftan-esque top topped of my ensemble perfectly. I had just opened a fresh bottle of cider and we were settling down for an evenings fumble when she suggested we light some candles and switch out the light. Now I wasn't so sure about this as I was pretty sure the red bulb in my lamp was providing all the moody lighting that was required.

But what was I gonna do, say no? I don't think so. So I got some candles and shoved them into the numerous empty cider bottles that littered my room. I didn't smoke back then so I had to borrow a light from Daryl who was having a larger and more exciting party in the sitting room. The music was getting gloomier, which was great, and the cider was taking effect, being a useless drinker it only took an bottle or two to have me on my ass. She was giggling and chatting away as I carefully lit the many many candles. I'm talking a cheesy rock video amount of candles, November Rain springs to mind.

I lit all the candles at the front of the table and then reached across to light the candles at the back. And then it happened, in a wooooooosh it was gone, my hair, my beautifully crafted hair, my raison d'être, the only thing that separated me from the rest of the mouth breathers out there was now nothing more than a charred lumped of nothingness on my singed scalp. The half can of recently applied hairspray acted as the fuel that burnt my hair and ruined my life in two seconds flat. To add insult to my burnt injury the young lady I was hoping to fumble with, because that's all it would have been, doused me in cider to put the flames out. So there I was in tears with no hair, no booze, and no bloody hope of a fumble on this the most magic of nights for Goths. Just fucking brilliant.

The girly screams of horror, my voice was yet to fully break, attracted all my so called chums to my room. Of course they thought I was up to no good with the young lady but immediately their expressions of concern turned to ones of hilarity as they copped a load of my seared skull. There was huffing and moodiness for the rest of the evening, an evening I spent on my own except for the gloom rock stylings of Captain Bob. So it wasn't all bad.

In the end the hair was shaved off completely and I grew out of the army fatigues and velvet caftans. But I loved my hair and despite it never really doing the job I grew it for I would do it all over again, if I could grow hair again that is. Which I cant. Obviously. So if you are lighting candles this Halloween night and are in hope of a fumble do yourself a favour and light the candles at the back first......

So spill, who else had a whackadoo haircut?