He also owns a piece of hair. Or what might pass as hair in a dim light. What I remembered as his thinning blond hair had been replaced with something that looked like a road kill skunk, minus the white stripe. In short, this guy was wearing the most obvious rug in captivity. That’s what startled me.
See, this guy is not a pauper who can't afford to accessorize. He’s a developer who’s built vast suburbs and a Hyatt Regency hotel in addition to owning a percentage of the Kings. You’d think he would buy a hairpiece that didn’t look like a failed experiment swept from the floor of a barber college. He could easily afford a head ornament from the Sean Connery Collection of Cranial Canvas, but no, he’s taken the badly paved road to a false economy and looks it.
I can sympathize. My own hairline has not just receded. It’s gone into wild retreat. I toyed with the idea of buying a rug in order to be attractive to a woman, then the voice of sweet reason whispered in my inner ear, “She’s gonna find out sometime, Ace. Better make it sooner than later. Later and she just might burst out laughing if the damn thing flops over on your face at a crucial time and ruins The Moment.”
Besides, as a woman told me, “If it falls off in a restaurant, the other diners will try to kill it.”
A barber who hated to lose any business counseled me to let the hair on the side of my head grow long enough to cover the nekkid part on top. Bad idea. That looks goofier than a cheap hairpiece and is even more obvious. Another barber suggested that a couple of combover strands might be a comforting illusion for me, but that would just make me look like a skinny Homer Simpson. Forget it.
I thought Bald Pride might be the way to go. I had barbers give me the quick Buzzed To Fuzz Special. Eventually I bought an electric clipper to do the job myself instead of spending ten bucks a pop to be shorn like a sheep. On cold days I wear a stylish beret or a woolen Navy watch cap at a jaunty angle and strut around like a grand boulevardier and the most vain of peacocks.
I even bought a license plate frame that read “The More Hair I Lose The More Head I Get” but a miffed Christian neighbor took offense and removed it.
Yet I am sometimes humbled when remembering the words of a tired cocktail waitress when a bald drinking buddy of mine told her, “Bald headed men are more virile.”
She sighed and said, “No, they aren’t. They just talk more.”
Some of us even write about it.
As for that developer, I know him to be a nice fella. I wish he would ditch the toup and let his head shine like a beacon of good will.
Besides, if it falls off in a restaurant, well......
* * *
Comments?
Funny. The day before I left, a neighbor suggested that I dye my hair and the very next day (the day I left!) a woman in the airport told me how much fun I'd have with "the bottles." I like your jauntiness, your highness. -- Thea
LOL Tomato. No lie! As I clicked to read this story, my husband opened the door and shouted out, "I brought you home a rug to use your ab exerciser on." Another cute write, you! -- Pirate
Wonderful, and more wonderfuller. Love your timing. Lust for your sentences. Plus the hair thing is funny. -- Galen
Aw shucks. I thank you and my surviving hairs thank you.
I dated a man a long time ago who was going bald and went for the shave-his-head-with-a-razor technique. I thought it was pretty spiffy, and I thought it equally spiffy that he made up for his lack of hair on top with a grand mustache and a fancy goatee that looked like a work of art. He was a striking looking guy. Now, if only his looks had compensated for the fact that he turned out to be a prick. Oh well. Sometimes there's just no way to make a dumbass fine, no matter how handsome a package it comes in. Great writing as always. -- Zoey
What a terrific story, Mike! -- Amanda
Funny. The day before I left, a neighbor suggested that I dye my hair and the very next day (the day I left!) a woman in the airport told me how much fun I'd have with "the bottles." I like your jauntiness, your highness. -- Thea
LOL Tomato. No lie! As I clicked to read this story, my husband opened the door and shouted out, "I brought you home a rug to use your ab exerciser on." Another cute write, you! -- Pirate
Wonderful, and more wonderfuller. Love your timing. Lust for your sentences. Plus the hair thing is funny. -- Galen
Aw shucks. I thank you and my surviving hairs thank you.
I dated a man a long time ago who was going bald and went for the shave-his-head-with-a-razor technique. I thought it was pretty spiffy, and I thought it equally spiffy that he made up for his lack of hair on top with a grand mustache and a fancy goatee that looked like a work of art. He was a striking looking guy. Now, if only his looks had compensated for the fact that he turned out to be a prick. Oh well. Sometimes there's just no way to make a dumbass fine, no matter how handsome a package it comes in. Great writing as always. -- Zoey
What a terrific story, Mike! -- Amanda
To the point: What is hard for our generation is we once were longhairs, unlike our fathers.The guy's codpiece only tells me god has a sense of humor. There are many forms of self annhilation. Your writing , always good, is seeming even more fluid, perhaps the natural outcome of hearing ones own voice, and haven given up on defense mechanisms to ball up perceptions. Keep going, and know I always enjoy your sketches, scenes and scenarios. They have that feel of substance. -- Peter Kidd aka Ig Bear
Thank you, Peter. Took me a long time to hear that voice and commit it to print. Up to that point I tried to commit literature. The result would have gotten me a membership in Pompous Anonymous. Then I learned to write for the readers’s ear and not the term paper eye, sentence fragments and all. Took lots of practice. Stll does.
Bravo. Nobody I know who sets out to make literature actually succeeds. Sometimes even poets don't get it often. Be a humble writer and let the rest take care of itself. -- Ig
Thanks again. Humility is harder for me to learn than committing literature.
You never cease to amaze and amuse me. Please, never stop. I agree with one of the other posts, you should write a book. -- Carol
Thank you, Peter. Took me a long time to hear that voice and commit it to print. Up to that point I tried to commit literature. The result would have gotten me a membership in Pompous Anonymous. Then I learned to write for the readers’s ear and not the term paper eye, sentence fragments and all. Took lots of practice. Stll does.
Bravo. Nobody I know who sets out to make literature actually succeeds. Sometimes even poets don't get it often. Be a humble writer and let the rest take care of itself. -- Ig
Thanks again. Humility is harder for me to learn than committing literature.
You never cease to amaze and amuse me. Please, never stop. I agree with one of the other posts, you should write a book. -- Carol
Now I'll know what my Australian cowboy hat will be good for, when my hair gets so thin you can see my brain through it -- Gerard
Thanks, this is utterly charming. Just thought you should know! -- Kate.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! -- Karen
Even though a hairpiece is something quite atrocious?
I enjoyed your essay on hair. I am glad that I still have my hair. When I weighed 225, my stomach stood out ahead of my chest. I lost 30 pounds but still have a thick waist. I suppose that if I exercised more, I might have a thinner waist. On the positive side, you and I are still alive and good things may happen to us. -- Ken
Donald Trump says he has a double comb over. Well, someone who analyzed his head in a picture said that's what it was. You could go for that, but I'd choose another color than orangutan. It's not even becoming on men with money. Keep writing. I'll keep reading and laughing. -- Linda B
David Letterman refers to Trump’s hair as “that thing on your head.”
Really enjoyed this one, Mike--and I wish you could get the Donald to read it! -- DA
This is one of my absolute favs, Mike. Very funny. This guy must have a relative named Donald, right? -- Sandy
Right!
You're going to think this odd but I'm on a Greyhound bus headed for Las Vegas as I write this. Lol, this ain't the 1950's Pomidoro man! -- QBman
Good luck in Vegas. Hope you don't get, uh, clipped, and have to hitch hike home.
Oh, Mike, how I love your stories. I really, really do! -- Tia
This was a good one. We were just talking about combovers at work last night. -- Julisari
You're hilarious! Why don't you send this to the New Yorker? -- Pamela
Flatterer.
.I liked 'the most obvious rug in captivity.' Thanks. -- Lady W
LOL. That was entertaining. -- Mary Pat
You should have seen the pilot I flew with when I was a co-pilot in B-52s. He wore an unmistakable rug, and was so vain that he would not take it off even when he flew. So, for 8 hours or so during flight he had his helmet on (and we usually sweat a lot under those helmets). At the end of the flight he kept his helmet on until he could finally get out of the plane and get to the men's room at base ops, where he would comb and rearrange his hair piece, and emerge with perfect hair and helmet under his arm. -- Mickey C.
Well, as long as he didn’t also touch up his eyebrows and lipstick while shooting an instrument approach, I guess he was harmless.
Some hair turns grey, some hair turns loose. That's all I have to say on the subject. -- Wht
In my case, both.
