Did I miss a class on this somewhere?

Last week I was getting my haircut and my thoughts turned once again to the strange situation that I always find myself in there. Essentially, I go because my hair is too long and I want it cut. I mean "haircut" seems pretty straightforward, right? However, once there, the people who spend all of their working hours in this world of haircutting expect me to know all the technical terms to describe the manner in which I'd like my hair to be cut and to have strong opinions on each aspect of how things look in the end. I mean, when I go to Midas, they don't ask me how I want my brakes changed or in the end how I feel about what they've done. They don't even show me the new brakes. I just assume that they are in there. I don't even get to watch them change my brakes. I mean they are the experts, not me. I think the same ought to apply when I visit an establishment where the employees display licenses on the wall proclaiming their expertise in the field of cutting hair.

Granted I've been getting my hair cut for quite some time now, and you'd think that I'd have figured this all out by now, and to a certain extent I do -- one and half on the sides and back and finger-length on top. I just learned the finger-length part in the last year or so. Before that I would say "one and a half on the sides and back and a little longer on top". Even then, every hair cutting person (hairdresser?) that I know does things a little differently and so obviously its not going to be the same every time, especially given that I'm just walking into Great Clips and taking the next available chair. But really, I don't care too much. The only thing that really bugs me is when they cut the front of my hair (do men have bangs?) and I get home and find out that there are a few hairs that are clearly much longer than the surround hairs. Other than that, shorter = better, although I guess I'm not quite ready to shave it all off.

Always at the very end they ask me if I want it squared or rounded in the back. To be honest, I have zero preference on this, given the huge amount of time I spend seeing the back of my head. What I really want to say is whichever is easier for them, but I really have no idea, so I always opt for square.

So really, every time I get them to cut my hair shorter without feeling like a complete fool, I feel like I pulled a fast one. And 6 weeks later I'll be back to go through it all again.