A Bald Choice

Overall, my family skews toward the healthy side.  Three fourths of my grandparents lived or are living into their 90s.  There is no history of heart disease or cancer on either side.  By all indications, barring any serious accidents or unhealthy habits, I should live a long and fruitful life.

The joke is on me though.  I can throw family history out the window because every single traceable member of my family has a full, luscious head of hair and I do not.  For some reason, when this subject comes up, people assume I’ve never thought about this before and inevitably ask, “Chris, have you checked your mother’s father because it always comes from the mother’s side?”  Um, yes I have.  His name was Lewis and all hair was present and accounted for.  I am the black sheep in my family.  This is and has always been hard for me to come to terms with.  In high school, the hair on my head was nothing short of a mane.  I could grow bangs so long and thick that I looked both preppy and fratastic at the same time.  My bangs went great with khakis and a polo and perhaps a curled up hat representing a school of the SEC persuasion if I was feeling sassy.

For years, I was convinced that the developing bald spot on my head was some sort of advanced cowlick.  I thank my mother for being gracious enough to lie to me for so long so I would not have to accept my lot in life.  Then one day for my birthday or Christmas or some other inconsequential day, I got a package from my grandma.  I had not yet made it out of my teens yet here I was staring at a box of Rogaine.  We have not spoken since. Literally.  That is awful and I am a bad person, I accept that.

The Rogaine experiment failed and the hair kept packing up and leaving.  However, it remained a running joke in my family.  The first time I brought my wife home for Thanksgiving, my mom thought it appropriate to bring up the fact that her mother bought me Rogaine to fight off my follicular challenges.  My mother, in her words, thought that was a hoot.  I bowed my head in shame.  My dad got up, left the table, and walked back to his office because that’s what older people do when they no longer want to be in the presence of their spouses.  This lovely young lady that I was doing my darndest to impress tried to comfort me and explain that she would probably have gray hair one day (she does) and that she understands (she does not).  What my wife cannot understand is that I would give up my first-born, and by first-born I mean our dog, to have gray hair.  At least then I would have hair and besides, gray hair makes old dudes look spectacular.

Some people shave their heads and look amazing.  I tried this once just to see how it would fit me.  That will never happen again and I will tell you why.  My eyebrows become unreasonably dominant and I look like Bert from Sesame Street.  If I grow what hair I do have left just a little bit, my eyebrows magically disappear and I take on the appearance of a fair-haired, but balding, Norwegian man.  Balding Norwegians are and shall remain preferable to Bert.  I keep my hair as short as possible without venturing into Muppet territory and we now have a mutual tolerance for each other.  I try not to draw too much attention to my thinning hair and my thinning hair tries not to fall out anymore.  Score.

Without any shadow of a doubt, others have it much worse and I appreciate that.  I went to see the band Candlebox last week.  They are a band from the 90s that used to be associated with flannel but now look like regular rockers in their 40s.  They still have hair too.  Posers.  I appreciate them because I have been a fan for twenty years or so and they still play lots and lots of guitar solos.  Guitar solos are awesome and should occur more often.  More importantly though, I felt incredibly secure there because I fell into the younger demographic of fan so I was both skinnier and had much more hair than everyone else.  I have no idea how many times that will ever occur again so I did my best to enjoy the moment.  I acted like a twenty year old and banged my head for two hours.  The next day I could neither move my neck nor hear.  I truly am getting older but at least I had more hair than most other people at a Candlebox concert. 

Nobody can take that away from me.

Ever.