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 By David Jenneson June 11, 2004 This week I made the mistake of going to a hair stylist then rushing straight to a Hallowe’en party. When I got a good look at myself in the mirror of the host’s washroom I discovered was unintentionally in costume. I looked like Pencil Head. My hair was whipped and swirled up to a definite point, like a sundae, to cover a pate I never see because one cannot look at the top of one’s own head. I stared into the mirror and tried to pat down my unicorn horn but it had a life of its own. Such is the fate of the bald. My only saving grace is that I am tall enough so at eye level no one else can tell that I am follically challenged. My grandfather was hairless as a cheese by the time he was twenty-five. I’ve always been prepared for a like fate. It’s the transition that’s rough. Hair stylists roll their eyes when the follically challenged walk in. For some time now I’ve asked them to be brutally honest about what I have left. They comb it across my dome this way and that, contemplating, as if staring into chicken entrails. At some point the solution strikes them and they silently begin cutting. I come out looking either like Pencil Head or Crop Circle Man, with strands swirled about my head and snugged down with enough spray to stand a Force 7 gale. To me it feels like an aerated army helmet. I go home, wash it out and let what’s left fall where it may. While enduring these painful trims I’ve tipped off more than one stylist the secret of making a fortune. The stylists admit they place follically challenged clients are at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to desirability. A fully follicalled person offers the cutter an ample palette on which to coif. With a truly bald person it’s more like trying to put a rakish trip on the edges of a sand trap. Yet the follically challenged still slink through the door like semi-hairless untouchables, neither fish nor fowl. I tell the stylists if they created cool new minimalist styles in a special School of the Nearly Bald then opened a chain of salons catering exclusively to the follically challenged, they’d be rich. Whatever our faults, we follically challenged are in our prime earning years with enough vanity to still care about how we look. We represent a fair chunk of change. But short sighted stylists blandly inform me they have developed no special techniques other than trying to make less look like more. The follically challenged don’t care. It’s the thought that counts. All we want is a cut that is sensitive to our needs. If someone would put some care and thought into gently guiding us down our path to utter baldness we’d flock to them with open wallets. I once tried to start a self help group for mutual support. I thought it would give us a voice and help us better our lot. A grass roots of damaged roots, so to speak. The idea came to me while flipping through one of those word-a-day calendars. I was confronted with the word pilgarlic. I couldn’t believe me eyes when I read the definition: ‘pilgarlic; a bald man, or a man to be regarded with scorn and derision.’ This described me and most of my friends. I founded the National Pilgarlic Society as a follically challenged/bald rights organization. I even had letterhead done. My fatal error was appointing a puritanically bald person as Chairperson. As luck would have it he rejected most applicants on the basis that they were unworthy, not being as bald as he. I had hoped he would provide leadership, like a shiny hood ornament, leading us on. But no. In the end the National Pilgarlic Society died a quite death because of his balder than thou attitude. Pity. It had a lot of potential. There are some heavy hitters out there. Most heads of state show genuine leadership potential. I’m sure many know the heartbreak of emerging from the cutter as Pencil Head or Crop Circle Man. Some of the greatest minds of our time probably suffer scars of the ultimate anguish – being co-erced by a wife or girl friend to adopt the comb-over to cover their ever larger and more unfashionable dome. Think of it – William Shakespear, Telly Savalas, Mark Messier - English Kings and U.S. Presidents – all suffering this trauma. I’ll bet Osama himself has a combover under all that that headgear. This may account for his twisted, hostile behavior. Despite my efforts I’m left facing the prospect of endless appointments with disinterested cutters who sniff at the follically challenged instead of seeing us for what we really are - a gold mine. My final solution is that cutters should stop turning me into Pencil Head or Crop Circle Man. What I want for Christmas is not a comb over hairstyle that looks like a bar code. No, give me a simple cut then date stamp my head. At least then when I do go bald I’ll have proof of a service record for my hair, similar to what’s recorded on the inside of your car door for when you sell it. Nevertheless, some readers may be interested in reviving the International Pilgarlic Society and I’m all in favor of that. And this time there’ll be no being kicked out because your head doesn’t resemble a bowling ball. In fact if you are over 30, male, and interested in joining, reach up right now and run your fingers through your hair. Reach back. No, way back. Welcome to the club. ------------ About the author: David Jenneson is a writer and noveliest who lives in Vancouver, Canada. You may reach him at his website www.davidjenneson.com email: dmail@telus.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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