"Fleeced "
"Mr. Clean" they've been calling me. Grumble. Figured it wouldn't take long for that nickname to stick. Several months ago I started shaving my head (please forgive my stating the obvious, but lots of the people who read these little diatribes haven't seen me in sometimes more than a few years).
I started slowly. I just kept removing guards on the clippers until I ran out of guards. Only one step left to go - time to break out the Gillette.
This evolution actually began the morning of my 18th birthday. At least that’s when I noticed. I rolled out of bed to my usual morning ritual. Yawn. Scratch. Down the hall to the Sechrist Hall 3rd Floor bathroom. Shower, brush the teeth, put on some clothes, fix the do.
And then, right there in bristles of my hairbrush, was a wad of my hair. Very odd. Rarely did I ever have to pull hair out of my brush.
After about three weeks with a new wad of hair in the brush every morning, I called my mother out of curiosity. "Mom, how long has Grandpa been bald?"
"Oh, I don’t think he has ever had hair."
I can't begin to explain the impact of that statement.
So it began: Male pattern baldness. Ugh, that sounds so...helpless. Impotent. Bleah. Wish they named it something more, well, masculine. Like excessive testosterone syndrome. Or rapid scalp expansion.
Regardless, I was losing my hair.
Twelve years later, I guess it’s more appropriate to say that I have lost my hair. A good part of it at least.
Only a handful of people on this list know what I used to look like. I’m Italian. I always had a mane of thick, dark, wavy and – dare I say it – sexy hair. So thick I couldn’t use a comb. And damn, I loved my hair. I did gelled spikes, blow-dried feathers, tight curls, long bangs, a stupid ponytail, moussed waves, and a slicked greaser. Not all at once of course.
How ironic that the same genetics that spawned those locks would so effortlessly take them away.
God’s big practical joke – let him lose that wonderful hair in his 20s, the height of his youth and - at least what is advertised as - the pinnacle of his sexual prowess.
I’d been fleeced.
And that’s what it felt like. Being slowly stripped of one’s youth. The price of vanity I suppose. I assume that in the grand mystical scheme of things, this will all eventually make sense to me.
Personally, there are times I would prefer a pompadour to enlightenment.
Hair loss is a funny thing. Every day the hairline gets a little higher. Every morning, the top a little thinner. And every year, more hats. It’s so gradual, you don’t notice till you cross some unknown threshold of scarcity, and one day look into the mirror and realize, "Shit, I can see my scalp". But once you do notice, it’s hard to notice anything else.
Despite what the politically correct people will tell you, when it comes to hair loss, the black man has the advantage. Black and bald: Clean, sophisticated, sexy. Think Michael Jordan. White and bald: Chemotherapy or outlaw biker. Think Michael Stipe or Jesse Ventura.
Thankfully, there are always exceptions to this rule.
But I digress. I was not the kind of person to sit there and let some single nucleotide polymorphisms in my genetic code have their way with me.So several years ago I researched my options.
Rogaine: For about $30 bucks a month, I began squirting this alcohol-based snake oil on my scalp with the assumption that I was one of the lucky few for whom this concoction will help. I wasn't. And even if I was, it couldn't save my whole head of hair. It merely rescues the hair on the crown, preventing the dreaded "bald spot". The hair on the front will leave regardless of what I apply to my scalp – with "Super-glue" the sole exception.
Propecia: A friend of mine swears by this product, convinced it is the miracle cure we’ve been waiting for. But at $60 bucks a month for life, miracles don’t come cheap. Of course, it can also destroy my libido as a side effect. And I like my libido fine just the way it is.
Toupees: Not if you paid me.
Hair Systems: Yes, the famous Hair Club for Men. For roughly $4 grand, I can have a wig of human hair permanently tied to my scalp. Of course, every few months I would have do go in for a faux follicle fix - a tune up for the tresses. This sounds good, but really, all they do is tie a toupee to your head. And as I have previously noted, I’m not a toupee kind of guy.
The Spray: Powdered spray-paint for the naked noggin sold via Ron Popeil. Only $29.95 plus shipping and handling. This is just too humiliating a chore for the locker room. Or any room.
Surgery: The magic of modern medicine. For $5K - $50K, I can have those genetically resilient hairs on the back of my head relocated to the genetically challenged regions on the front of my head. For a few thousand more, the good surgeon can remove the skin off the top of my head so there is less to fill. At first this sounded like the miracle cure. Well, this by it’s very nature has to be a continuous procedure, lest I end up one day with a perfectly planted hair line across my brow like a chestnut windbreak for the barren and shiny scalp behind it. Or worse, a random collection of oddly placed hairs sprouting around my skull – like an old Barbie doll left in the back yard for too many seasons with the family schnauzer. Unless I start making a lot of money, I had better hope my HMO suddenly approves hair restoration a justifiable medical expense.
Sadly, grooming options become equally limited.
I could do the denial and keep the same hairdo I always had before – despite ridiculously lonely wisps gallantly clinging to their home.
I could do the comb over. If I had absolutely no self-respect. .
But regardless of what hair I had left or how I styled it, I still knew that I was losing my hair. And subsequently, deep down, there remained a little insecure corner of the brain that wanted to conceal or correct the loss.
I can’t control it, and believe it or not, that was the hardest part. Learning to accept that there are simply some things I can’t control, can’t contain, can’t reverse, even about myself.
Therein, however, also lies the solution. With baldness comes freedom. Yes my friends! By shaving my head I remove all concern about my hair. There's none left to be concerned about! Total confidence. Total control. It completely changes the psychology of the situation. I didn't lose my hair - I got rid of it. I'm a rebel! I'm in control! I'm sexy! I'm glad my head's not shaped like an eggplant!
So warm up the Norelco and break out the sun block! Me and Moby, we be mates.
One more little bonus: Women - oddly enough - seem to like it. I think I've had more dates this year than in the last six years combined. This isn't without some irony. The first girlfriend I had after reducing my lame locks to stubble was a hair stylist.
And while I'm at it, for some weird reason lots of women now have an uncontrollable urge to touch my head. I can't tell you how many times complete strangers have walked up to me rubbed my head. I like the attention, but sometimes I feel like a puppy. Well, a bald one.
But again, I digress.
I suppose it's all lesson in self acceptance and self control. I can't change who I am, but I can change how I live. I can't control the event, but I can control how I respond to it. And finally, I’d like to think that regardless of what's going on outside my head, I got a lot of good stuff going on inside it.
Now if I could just find a way to deal with this unsightly cellulite....
