I was strolling through the East Village and Chelsea recently, two areas of Manhattan with a fairly high hipness score. (I can tell you right now that, not having any tattoos, I felt like an enemy agent, or at best an emissary from the Country of Old People.) I noticed these signs, which I hope were aiming for humor and not accurately reporting services offered. But these days, who knows? First up:

Do the police know?

I wondered whether the shop operated a guillotine or something less fatal. (Repeat business, after all, doesn’t flourish if the head is in a basket and the body in a chair.) Seeing no rivulets of blood seeping under the door, I kept reading:

Please tell me we’re talking about hair.

Where do I start? “Mens” needs an apostrophe, and “women” needs both an apostrophe and the letter S. Given the guillotine reference, I wouldn’t mind seeing “hair” before the word “cuts.” But in a neighborhood where anyone who doesn’t display a pierced something is an anomaly, maybe the sign should say “men and women cut,” to inform the public that the slicing and dicing on sale is gender-neutral.

The next time I need a cut – and I do refer to hair – I may stop by. I’ll let you know the result, if I’m still alive.