Man, I have to disagree with you here. Asking if he needed to take the call kind of put him on the spot in front of a whole restaurant. Most people would turn red and shove the phone away just to avoid the weird vibe, not because they actually learned something. If you had let it ride, you would have seen the real him, the guy who checks scores while you talk. Now you got a guy who's embarrassed, and you still don't know if he would have stopped on his own.

The angle I never see people talk about is how blade dulling changes your actual cutting technique without you noticing. Like when blades start pulling instead of slicing, you naturally slow down and take more passes, which feels like you're just being careful. Next thing you know you've built a whole habit around fighting dull blades and your fades come out choppy. By the time you swap in fresh ones your hands have to relearn what normal speed feels like. Keeping a little tally on your phone or a sticky note on the station helps way more than trusting your gut on it.