A hair-raising tale

I’m worried about humanity. Every day I see something more and more stupid than the day before. I don’t think we have a chance. You know what? I misspoke. Or mistyped. Not humanity. Humanity might be getting more stupid every day too, but I really mean men. If men had to promulgate the species by themselves, we’d still be in the Dark Ages. And probably in the dark as well. Especially if those men are, as almost all men will be sometime, starting to thin a little up at the hairline.

Oh my Heavens, you would think the world is coming to an end. As soon as it seems there is just a little creep backwards in the hairline, all aich, ee, double hockey sticks breaks out. “Frick! My hair is falling out! I’m not a man anymore!!” So genius that he is, he shaves his head. “Now it will look like a fashion statement, not that I’m bald.” Yeah, right.

But then, genius that he is, he knows how to use a computer and discovers testosterone is necessary for hair growth. Naturally he makes the connection, no hair means he has no testosterone. No testosterone means he only has his oversized red pick-up truck to prove he’s a man and he can’t take that to bed with him. What will he do?

Now this idiot remembers elementary school math and knows that 2 plus 2 equals something, so he adds them up and comes up with a solution. If he has to have hair to pick up women, then by gosh, he’ll grow some hair. But his head is off limits because he just spent a bazillion dollars on a fancy 17 head rotary razor designed especially for thinning and balding men to recapture their outer beauty by mowing away whatever hair might be left growing out of the top of his head. Next best thing to head hair? That’s right — facial hair! So he grows a beard. And not a sophisticated, well-groomed, trim offering like the debonair George Clooney. Oh no. He does the full on, don’t come near me with a pair of manicure scissors, scraggly, end of the world, manly man’s beard like ZZ and his friend, Top.  

Oddly, he still can’t pick up women, so since he is a genius, his first thought is that his truck isn’t big enough. A reasonable assumption. Everyone knows the larger the truck the more manly the man. Ask any used car dealer. So he goes all out, gets an even bigger, even redder, this time diesel pickup with bigger and shinier wheels and tires too. And takes the mufflers off to make certain his is noticed and not overlooked for some weeny in a Tesla. And he still goes home alone after spending all night at the bar. Now what’s the problem?

When he gets home he looks at himself in the mirror and decides he’d sleep with him if he had a chance. But even genius lunatic that he is, he sees something just doesn’t look right with a ZZ Top beard below a cue ball head. How can we fix that? Right! Get a hat! So the hext day he heads out to the fashion capital of the world, Walmart, and gets a hat. He’d like one with a pick-up on the front so he can double up on his manly man ride, but all he can find is one with a tractor on the front and a bull saying “Who farted?” and buys 3 of them so he’ll never run out. Remember, we are dealing with genius.

So now he has his manly man hat covering up his manly man bald shaved head above his manly man beard and he hops into his manly man truck and scoots on down to the local dive bar looking for a woman who can’t wait to be in the arms of a true manly manly man.

Just one problem. If he should find a female looney enough to match on him, he will have found her thus attired which means he can never ever never remove his hat except to shave his head, so he now goes through life with a hat on his head (a hat that says, “who farted?”) everywhere he goes, including out to fancy dinners, church and school functions, shopping, doctor appointments, job interviews, even when he goes to have his manly man truck cleaned up and made shinier where he can sit in the waiting room and share his manly man wisdom.

So if you ever run across a guy who looks like ZZ Top with a hat on climbing down out of big red manly man pickup truck, don’t try to pick him up. He’s taken. Mostly with himself.   


It makes sense that governments can’t take time to regulate everything in life, thus the unwritten law. But which is more powerful – the unwritten rule, or the desire to pursue life, full steam ahead?



A Little Off the Top

This weekend past was the NFL Week One weekend. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal.  College football has been going on for a couple of weeks.  High school and midget or little league football might have been happening for close to a month in some places.  And even pro football hasn’t been unheard from with nationally televised pre-season games.  But this was the official week.  The week when football at all levels was played and the games counted.  And there must have been much concern over the summer months because the coaches are all bald.

On Sunday when they spend lots of time aiming the cameras at the coaches along the sidelines during the game that you care about and are watching and all the others that they show during the half-time and post-game reports during and after the game you care about, most of those coaches were hairless.  Ditto for the college coaches on Saturday.  Even on the Friday night local news and in the Saturday morning paper, many of the high school coaches that got some PR time showed off their newly shorn former locks.  Bald we tell you!  They are all bald!

They will say they are making a statement, showing off their toughness, deliberating declaring themselves to be the more testosterone laden version versus the one across the field on the opponents’ benches.  They are the cross between The Rock and Bruce Willis.  Hmmm, let’s look a little closer.

We think they are all shaving their heads because they want to mask their receding hairlines.  For many men, it’s not an easy thing to deal with.  It’s much easier to design a successful pass rush when you look as menacing as the rushers.  Half-time pep talks go over bigger when you just have to grunt and let the bad locker room lighting reflect the sheen from a recent shave.  But when everybody is doing it, it’s not so cool.

We’re estimating close to 75% of the coaches spotted on the sidelines displayed the all over haircut.  (Oddly, those coaches with hair seemed to be wearing hats.)  Where the threat (of whatever) showed when the shaved head was one in a hundred, at 100 out of 100 they are just all the same model.  It is sort of like when the coaches stopped wearing suits on the sidelines and went for golf shirts.  The first few added to their menace repertoire as everyone could see their muscles bulging against the stretchy fabric.  Now they just look ready to hit the late night appetizer specials at the tavern down the street.

So, is the shaved head going to be the new fashion statement for this year’s sideline strollers?  Perhaps.  It’s not necessarily a bad look.  It’s just that those who are sporting it should remember why they favor the clean crown.  And remember that cross between The Rock and Bruce Willis?  Do it enough times and somebody is going to end up looking like a cross between Mr. Clean and Humpty Dumpty.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.