Rhiannon, Rihanna, Rianna ... What's in a Name?

Hola y’all! As you may or may not recall, the last time I was at the barber shop the wife of a guy getting a haircut told us all about her meth-addicted father who had a sex change operation. IKR?!  Well, this trip didn’t disappoint as in the end I heard something while not as salacious as a meth-addicted sex change operation, it was no less shocking.

But first, a little drama ….

When I walked through the door I saw that there were only two barbers working as once again, their third had up and quit on them. Both were busy with customers who looked like they had just gotten into the chairs. In addition to that, there were two people already waiting. Right off the bat I realized that it could be anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour before it would be my turn. I decided to stay though because what the hell, I was already there and I wouldn’t really go back later in the day anyway.

Luckily, they have a big flat screen TV set up with the Andy Griffith Show running so I was at least being entertained.  Just after the two men who were ahead of me got into the chairs a man came in with his little son. So, the three of us sat there and laughed at Barney Fife’s whacky antics and had a great time.  Unfortunately, when a chair opened up there was a near confrontation.

The dad and I stood up at the same time and he tried to jump in front of me. I stopped at leveled the Jayman Death Stare™ at him and he quickly and meekly put up his hands and said “Oh I’m sorry, that’s right, you were next. That’s right.”  Uh-huh.

See? I know what he actually wanted to do. He wanted for him and his son to get their haircut at basically the same time. Had he politely asked me if I would mind if they did that, even though I had already been waiting an hour, I would have said yes. I would have been more than happy to watch one more episode of Andy Griffith and wait. Instead of going the polite and decent route, he tried to cut in line and bully me. No dice buddy!

Anyway, after the usual exchange of niceties and a brief discussion of my hair desires, Brenda began to quietly and efficiently cut my hair. The only time she said anything was when she sighed and let me and everyone else know that she was REALLY ready for lunch.

Then, she mentioned again that she was hungry and was hoping that her husband and daughter Rianna would be there soon to take her to lunch. Just to make conversation, I asked her if she named her daughter after the Stevie Nicks (of Fleetwood Mac) song “Rhiannon.” She stopped cutting and said …

“No, but you know what? I’ve had other people ask me that same question and it’s funny because before they did I HAD NEVER HEARD OF STEVE NICKS OR HIS BAND.”

But wait! That’s not all. She then looked right at me with a rather confused look on her face and said “Not only that, but just the other day someone asked me if I had named her after the pop singer Rihanna and I had never heard of her either.”  

She then explained that when the kid was born and they filled out the paperwork they were going to name her “Brianna” but at the last second decided to “drop the B and just go with ‘Rianna’”

So there you go kids, another amazing and rather shocking story from the barber shop. I’m thinking about going weekly just for the blog fodder.

Jayman3768@gmail.com
Facebook.com/Jayman68
@Jayman_IWS