SportClips is a barbershop designed for men who love sports. Sports on tv, locker room design, and (typically) a nice looking woman to cut your hair. Today, I utilized the online check in to skip the line, and rolled the dice on the “first available” person to cut my hair. Now I understand there is only a finite number of attractive women in the greater York Pennsylvania area, and certainly an even smaller number of those women have been trained in the art of hair cuttery. But what are the chances that every time I walk in the joint they stick me with their barber who looks like she just rolled in off the bus after a couple mid morning meals at the old country buffet?

Now I get it, when they see this soft-faced portly gentleman with a ginger chin beard and a smile that won’t quit walk in the doors, they’re certainly not scrambling around for their “A team” barbers. I’m certainly undeserving of the former blue ribbon winner at the PA Farm show beauty contest, but just for once I wouldn’t mind maybe a B teamer. A former high school volleyball player who earned 3rd team all league in her lone varsity season in 2009. But hey, I get it, beggars cant be choosers. The onus is on me for not putting in the man hours and studying the “starting lineup” tab on the SportClips East York website and specifying my barber selection accordingly.

This brings me to my next point, is there anything we can do in order to skip the awkward barber small talk section? Listen Carol, I’m sure you’re very interested to hear about what I do for a living and what my weekend plans are, but I just don’t understand why we have to do this song and dance every 4-6 weeks. Perhaps there should be a tab you can click under preferences on your profile that says whether you want small talk or not. I’m sure there are plenty of men out there who love telling strangers with sharp objects in their hands all about how great their kids did in their first swim meet last weekend. But I am not one of those men. I’d prefer to just sit there quietly and watch the X games reruns they conveniently have on every visit until it’s time for the inevitable question, “will you be getting the MVP experience today?”

For those of you who don’t know, SportClips MVP experience is arguably the greatest invention since the lazy boy recliner. This experience includes your standard haircut (awkward small talk non negotiable, YET), then you’re taken to a separate room, very similar to the champagne room in gentlemen’s clubs I presume. At this time, you sit down in a massaging chair, and a hot steamed towel is placed over your face while your D team barber proceeds to massage and shampoo your hair. What a treat. After this, you return to your chair where you make sure to avoid eye contact with the fellow patrons in order to ensure their jealousy does not ruin the special moment you and Carol just shared in the back room. Up next is a quick back massage with what I can only assume is a retired vibrator donated by that days “”starting lineup.” Once finished, with the haircut, not anything else you sicko, its time to pay and be on your way.

All in all SportClips is a delightful institution that truly embodies its catch phrase, “its good to be a guy.” No matter how many times you have to deal with Carol and her awful attempts at making you feel comfortable with a strange middle aged heavy set woman cutting your thinning hair and growing bald spot. Speaking of which, I don’t care what my neck line looks like, just keep that mirror the hell away from that huge patch of pink real estate on the back of my head.

Danny Phantom