Shining, Gleaming, Streaming, Flaxen, Waxen

What's That on Your Head?

I’ve been thinking about hair a lot lately, or at least more than I normally do, which is almost not at all.  I think about my hair about as much as I think about toenails or my gall bladder, two other body parts I mostly just ignore and for good reason.  The difference is that hair seems to be pretty important in our society, just watch an hour or so of television and count the number of advertisements selling hair products. There’s an army of scientists dedicated to keeping the hair on men’s heads and another army of scientists trying to grow hair back on to heads that have lost it already.  And then there are the comb-over scientists for the guys who can’t afford the things the other scientists have invented.

I spend less than 15 seconds daily on my hair, some days even less.  I don’t own a comb or a brush.  I buy my shampoo in bulk and it can double as oven cleaner (my oven is in worse shape than my hair, if that is even possible). Sometimes I wash my hair with oven cleaner when I’m out of shampoo but my shampoo is much cheaper than oven cleaner so I try to avoid that scenario. 

I’ve never really had a cool or funky haircut—not for very long that is.  Once in a while I’ll splurge and go to an expensive salon. I look good walking out of the shop but the next day, after all of the gel and spray and whatever the hell the stylist put on my head has been washed or worn out, I have the same stupid-looking mop as before.  

And then there is the world’s worst haircut: the mullet, which comes from the French (pronounced moo-lay) meaning “What the hell, dude?” I feel sorry for guys and gals with mullets. Do you want to know why I feel sorry for them? I feel sorry for them because they obviously are people who don’t have friends, because if they had a friend that friend would tell them that their haircut isn’t suited for the post-caveman era.  It’s like when you leave the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to your shoe or you have food on your face; you rely on your friends to point these things out to you so you don’t walk around the rest of the day looking silly.

The alternative to getting a haircut is not getting one which is a million times worse.  What is my evidence for this statement? “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you exhibit A: Hippies.” Being a hippie is kind of like walking around with a filthy groundhog sitting on your head, except a groundhog would be sort of cute and long hair isn’t unless your name happens to be Heidi or Pippi. And as far as I know from reading the books I don’t think that Heidi and Pippi walked around all day trying to bum weed off their friends.