The reason I ended up with Achmed, was because the two boistrous older Italian guys in their late 60's who I used to go to, lost their shop to their bookie.
Previously when I was in there, invariably at some point, some middle aged chooch with a newspaper would come in and both Mario and Angelo would stop what they were doing, go over to this guy and place bets a/o order lottery tix (full service bookie
).
He'd insult them in Italian, they'd laugh... and he'd leave.
Then, Mario would go back to cutting my hair and watching the Jerry SPringer show over my head whispering "looka da teetsa, oh da teetsa" as he ogled some milf's boobz bouncing around the stage on the TV.
For some reason,This was actually all very charming to me.
Anyhoo, after years of this, I come in one day and the shop is stone quiet. TV off, no one waiting for a haircut...and the bookie is sitting at the cash register reading the racing form.
I sit down for my haircut and Mario says nothing the whole time. He finishes and when I go to pay him, he tells me "paya heema" mumbling under his breath... gesturing towards the bookie at the register.
DIng! I realize these two dopes were in deep with this guy, who was ensuring prompt payment by manning the register.
Next time I went back, there were two zipperhead guido's with tweezed eyebrows in their 20's cutting hair... and rap music was blasting. Mario and Angelo's family photos were gone.
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