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Friday, March 18, 2011

Who needs hair?

By DARREN HANDSCHUH
OK, what is the deal with hair.
Is it some cruel joke Father Time likes to play on people for his own personal amusement?
When you are born, odds are you had little to no hair on your head.
But it doesn't take long before your head is covered in this wonderful fluffy stuff known as hair.
During those first few years, hair can be more of a hassle than anything ñ for the parent anyway who has to try and keep Junior's hair clean after a hard day of playing in the dirt.
But as you enter the teen years, hair becomes an important part of your life. You wash it, condition it, comb it (a lot), dye it, style it, admire it...
There is just no end to the youthful enjoyment of a full head of hair.
Hair also starts to sprout on your legs and arms.
For most girls, this hair is light in both density and colour. Ladies can shave their legs and have skin as smooth as silk in a matter of minutes.
I would need a blow torch and weed-whacker to hack down the forest growing on my lower appendages. One wrong move could result in a medical emergency of the blood loss variety.
Many people keep their crown of locks well into their senior years, however, there are those fortunate few who get to experience balding at a young age. The chosen ones, I like to call them.
Yes, I am talking about yours truly. I started losing my hair when I was 20. By the time I was in my mid-20s, it was quite noticeable. In fact, my dad had more hair than I did.
I decided I might as well embrace my enhanced scalp and go bald gracefully.
No comb overs, no hair clubs and no growing it long in the back just to fool myself into thinking I still have a fountain of flowing follicles.
No, if I was going bald, - which I was ñ I was going to do it right. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I shaved my hair super short and decided that was probably the last hair style I would ever have.
But as the years progressed, I realized I was not actually losing hair ñ it was just relocating. I bet if I could count all the hair on my body, it would be exactly the same now as when I had a full head of hair because the hair on my head is simply sprouting up in other areas.
Why I need hair to grow out of the top of my shoulder I do not know. Not both shoulders, no, that would make way too much sense. Nope, I get to have hair growing out of my left shoulder only.
Why? I guess the answer could be why not.
Why do I need eyebrows that are bushy enough to hide a small immigrant family in? I don't, but my body thinks I do, so the older I get, the bushier the brows become.
While the shoulder locks are a mystery and the abundant eyebrows are kinda creepy, the hair growing out of my ears is utterly pointless.
I guess everyone has hair in their ears, but on most people it is not long enough to braid.
One year for Christmas, the Missus bought me a nose and ear trimmer ñ more as a practical joke than anything ñ but several years later I am putting that piece of battery operated gear through the paces on a regular basis ñ which is something she encourages actually.
I spend more time shaving my eyebrows, ears and shoulder than I do my face.
Come to think of it, Father Time is kind of a butthead.

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