One of the necessary chores I dislike most is going to the hairdresser. My hair grows enough to require a cut every five or six weeks, but each time I try to delay it for as long as possible. There are times when I wish I didn’t have to go, but then I wouldn’t have liked to lose my hair so early in life.

Being bald suits many men, but then there are many others who are downright ugly without hair. One such person I know even reminds me of Squidward, Sponge Bob’s octopus-friend, each time I see him. Perhaps it’s also because, like Squidward, he has his fingers in many pies. Unlike Squidward, however, he is not a likeable character.

There is one simple reason why I do not enjoy those 30 minutes at the hairdresser’s – and this is the amount of rubbish talk I have to endure each time I go there. Usually, I take a book with me and headphones to stuff into my mobile phone to listen to some music. But the last time I went I forgot both, so I was forced to listen.

There were five women and two men in the salon, and the way they were talking they all seemed to be experts in everything under the sun. The subjects varied from jellyfish to domestic violence, the price of gas cylinders to ‘O’ level exams, local councils to solar energy. Yes, they did talk about hairstyles too, but then that is to be expected.

When I entered the place, the conversation was concentrated on jellyfish, with one of them impressing the rest by saying that the reason for this “invasion” – her word, not mine – was that the population of turtles is decreasing. This piece of news – which every six-year-old knows – brought about many oohs and aahs among the rest. I just wondered what they would do if they watched some documentary on Discovery Channel or Piero Angela’s Quark on Rai TV.

Somehow they ended up talking about divorce. Don’t ask me what the connection is between jellyfish and marriage breakdowns. It could be that they saw similarities between a jellyfish’s sting and the sting of being abandoned by one’s partner. One of the women with something yellowish and sticky in her hair said that today there are more separated people than married people. I was tempted to ask her to give me some figures to substantiate her argument, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to get involved.

It was natural to move on to domestic violence, and here at least there was some link between the previous subject and the new one. And so I was regaled with the story of how this particular woman was beaten up by her husband in spite of being a “saint”. A pitiful account, indeed, if it’s true, but I am sure that details were added here and there to make the story more colourful. And, as we all know, there are two sides to every coin, but we didn’t get to hear the second part.

From domestic violence we went on to the price of gas – again, my thoughts must have drifted and I missed the connection. It could be that the husband of this particular woman was complaining that she was cooking too much for him and he was getting too fat.

And so we got the usual complaints about the rise in the cost of living and how miserly life has become for all of us. I started to get angry but restrained myself from intervening to say that if they’re not happy, they should eat bread morning, noon and night. I remembered just in time that there was a report that the price of bread would go up soon too. I would have probably been physically attacked had I said something.

At one point, one of the women said that you cannot eat healthy food today because it is too expensive. This same woman later paid €45 for having her hair done for a wedding she was going to later in the day and for which, we were told, she had bought a dazzling new dress. She said she hadn’t told her husband how much it had cost.

Someone suggested that instead of gas one can use solar panels to generate electricity. This sparked a debate on how inconvenient it would be to end up without electricity when it rains – which had me nearly bursting out laughing – but nobody mentioned that the government has offered financial help to those who opt for solar panelling.

A teen-aged girl walked in as the discussion was heating up – she was apparently the daughter of the woman with the sticky stuff on her head – and the subject in hand suddenly changed to “O” level examinations. Everyone offered their “prosits” for the results this girl had obtained, but then I felt sorry for her as she had to listen to various suggestions as to what to do with her life.

I was about to scream at this point and tell them to let the girl choose her own path, but then someone saw the mayor pass by outside the salon, and talk turned about the poor state of the pavements and a bulb that was not lighting up on a particular road.

One of the men said he would not vote next time because Enemalta had not yet turned up to change the bulb. He then let slip that he had phoned the local council the day before.

Thankfully, by this time my turn had come and I was soon out of the place. Next time, I will make sure not to forget my headphones and book.

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