Issue 26: Various and Sundry
By Amdnarg Toh

Thoughts on Baldness and Important Grooming Tips

I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Maybe it’s the warm water opening up the pores. Perhaps being free of bodily restrictions also frees up the old grey matter. Watching water and soap suds disappear down the drain makes me wax metaphysical….

I remember the phone call vividly. I can picture it now… me at nineteen, in college, calling my mom on the phone.

“Am I using the wrong soap?” I query.
“Why, son?” she responds.
“My hair seems to be falling out,” I state.
“No, son, you’re probably just losing your hair. Have you looked at your Dad lately?” she chuckles
A visceral, guttural cry emerges from my lips as I realize that I’ve lost the cruel gamble of genetics.

After several years of trying to come up with a “style” that fit my head shape and receding hairline, I decided I’d had enough of paying the barber eight dollars for five minutes of work. You would think that bald guys would get a discount or something. Six dollars and a visit to the pawn shop later, I held in my hand the solution to my dilemma – a shiny pair of hair clippers. I figured that after one month of doing my own hair that I’d be ahead financially as well as stylistically. I had reached grooming nirvana!!! Eventually adjusting the blade to shorter and shorter cuts, I decided to make the leap to a smooth shaved noggin. After learning that you can’t use cheap razors to shave places on your body that you can’t see, I finally came up with a razor that worked, and a shaving schedule that kept the five o’ clock shadow down to a minimum. Now five years later, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to look in the mirror and see a guy with hair.

Back to the shower… As I’m lathering up my head, I realize that an integral part of my scrubbing ritual is meticulously cleaning my ears. One time during one of those weird radio shows that tells folks why their cats urinate on houseplants, the resident expert stated that for most animals, grooming rituals are almost a hard-wired genetic program. So I’m not surprised that I don’t feel right as rain if I wash my head before my feet…Anyway, while pondering this and about three other trivial, random thoughts, (I’m a multitasker – what can I say?), I realize that there are more complications, (some good, some bad), to being bald than simply ensuring my ears are always clean. As my mind wandered, I came up with a list:

• First, if you’re bald, (by choice or not), you need to have clean ears. Without hair, your ears are possibly the most prominent feature people notice unless they’re looking at you in the face. You don’t want the first thing someone notices in line behind you at the coffee shop is that you have dirty ears.
• You can actually feel the heat output of a TV. It’s kind of weird to walk by a TV screen at work or in the airport and “feel” its presence. Apparently the scalp is pretty temperature sensitive.
• You need the right shape of head to be bald. I learned this from a fast food worker. She said, “Some folks don’t have the right shape of head to be bald – your head is just marvelous.” Not knowing whether or not to be troubled by the attention, I’ve simply accepted this statement as a helpful nugget of wisdom.
• I bump my head much more often. With hair to warn you that you’re too close to that sharp shard of metal hanging from the garage ceiling, you can avoid metal piercing your scalp as the first indication that you’re too close.
• You can tell who has been bald for a while… Their scalp color matches the rest of the skin on their head. You can tell bald “newbies” by the pale tint of their freshly shorn scalp.
• It’s nearly impossible to keep a stocking hat on a freshly shaved head, tempting me to find a way to keep a perpetual whisker covering simply to hold my hat on my head on a cold day.
• I don’t have to worry about rolling the windows down during a drive through the country on a warm summer evening.
• I never have a bad hair day.
• I never have hat-head.

So, if all of these benefits aren’t enough to convince you to join the club, then you’re probably not going to be convinced.

You should still keep your ears clean, though. My Mom says so.