Deano Levison is the foremost barber and chair rental technician in the North West.
“Everybody thought I was mad at first. After all who wants to rent a chair? Everybody already has chairs don’t they? There is a famous saying in Barbery and that is ‘The only thing more than hairs is chairs!’. That is to say people like to have nice hair cuts but they can always wear hats, if someone wants to sit down the need a chair. What else are they going to sit on?”
I pointed out the existence of the chaise lounge and Deano went a strange colour “Technically a chaise lounge is for reclining on, there is no proper lumbar support. If you want your spine pinging out of your back like a watch spring then be my guest!” I could see I had a hit a raw nerve so I quickly asked him how he managed to rent out so many chairs. (He was holding his scissors in a violent manner and I was afraid he was going to try and trim more than my fringe!)
“You can’t go straight into chair rentals, you have to talk to the customer a bit first, get to know them see where they might need a chair. For example if someone mentions they have an aunt you can rent them a chair in case the aunt comes round for tea. You cant have an elderly aunt sitting on the floor as she would complain to your mother and then you would get a right earful. It’s easiest when they say they are getting married because people always need chairs for weddings and you can tell them scare stories about the time your cousin Bertram gone married and there wasn’t enough chairs so the bride imploded. That didn’t actually happen but if you tell a story with enough conviction people will believe anything. People tend to believe anything you tell them about chairs anyway because they are such a sturdy and reliable object, you can’t imagine them being deceitful like you could a computer desk. I once told a man that chairs were actually held up by magic and the legs were just for show. On that occasion he didn’t believe me but that’s the inception that proves the fool.”
Deano went on at length about the various chair related lies he had told, I asked him if he considered this to be false advertising. Again he started waving the scissors around…
“Look if you want to get OFCOM (Oligarchy for convincing original men) involved then go ahead and they’ll find that these lies are all ironic. If people choose to believe them then that’s there business but some people believe the moon is made of moon rocks and you don’t see OFCOM getting involved in that!”
I go on to ask Deano about the different types of chair he has available, I wasn’t very interested but again he was coming at me with a dangerous intent.
“Types of chair? Are you jesting with me!? There is only one types of chair here and that is known as CHAIR. Four legs and a seat my friend and then a back rest for the important support. If you don’t support your back who’s going to support you? In the case of Gloria Estefan a large iron rod but we aren’t all pop stars. The pricing structures of the chairs are as follows
1 Chair – 1 Pfennig a day
3 Chairs – 3 Pfennig’s every two days
5 Chairs – 7 pund a week
10 Chairs (Known as the Deano Bonanza) - 22 punds a month and 1.95 delivery.”
“The thing about barbery/chair rentals is that sometimes you get people coming into the shop who don’t even want to have a hair cut but you HAVE to have a hair cut if you want to rent some chairs. Once I even scalped a bald man because he was so desperate for a sit down, the thing is that under his bald head their was lots of trapped hair that had spent years trying to get out. The moral of the story is that baldness is caused by gluing up the holes on your hair with chemicals. That man had worked in a chemical factory and had bet a man that sticking his head in the chemicals would have no ill effects. He didn’t win the bet and he had to wear hats all the time. I’m always telling this story because it’s important that people don’t just go away with a haircut and some chairs, they also go away with a sound knowledge of proper health and safety. I know a lot of people think that its political correctness gone mad but my Granddad fell over a railing in the times before railings had fences around them.”
I came away from Deano’s emporium with a heavy heart. The entire time I was there he never once spoke of cutting any actual hair. One wonders why he doesn’t just go into chair rental full time; I got the feeling that his true love was chairs but that this might be considered too effeminate by the local community. His words of wisdom rung in my ears “Chairs over hairs but bears can bewares”
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