The barber in Hays, Kansas gave me a joke with every snip and I went back 5 times just for that
I was driving through Kansas on a work trip 2 months ago and stopped in Hays for a haircut at this tiny shop on Main Street. The barber, a guy named Walt who has been cutting hair for 41 years, told me a dad joke after every single snip of the scissors. I am not kidding, every snip. He got me with "why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was out standing in his field" while he was working on my sideburns. Then he hit me with three more before he even picked up the clippers. I laughed so hard at the one about the cheese factory that I jerked my head and he nicked my ear a little. He just wiped it with a tissue and kept going like nothing happened. What got me was that the jokes were not even the best part. In between them he asked me real questions about my job and my family, and told me about his wife who passed 6 years ago and how he still makes her coffee every morning out of habit. It was 25 minutes of laughing and then almost crying and then laughing again. I have gone back 5 times now even though it is 90 minutes each way. Has anyone else found a place like that where the small talk turned into something you actually looked forward to?
That detail about his wife and the coffee hit me harder than any joke could. What made you keep going back after that first visit, was it the jokes or the way he actually listened? And did you ever tell him how much those visits meant to you, or is that just something you two leave unsaid?