Flow It, Show It, My Hair

As if our filth-magnetized flesh and ceaseless mucous flow weren’t enough, humans are beset with millions of grease antennas we call “hairs.” Hair is a potentially oppressive presence in one’s life depending upon the lengths one is willing to go to maintain it. Some are willing to give much more than others, and as a result spend much of their life enacting the will of the hair instead of pursuing their own dreams. Darned if I’d ever fall into that trap. 

My approach to hair upkeep is akin to my attitude towards automotive maintenance; I’m willing to invest just enough to avoid being ejected from human society. Of course even by my own standards I’ve been giving way too much attention to my hair since I’ve been married.

Before meeting my wife, I assumed it was acceptable merely to keep my hair out of things: my eyes, light sockets, gas turbine engines, the VCR, etcetera. Along comes this woman in my life and suddenly it matters how my hair “looks” or what it is “shaped like.” Not only does this complicate an already tedious daily grooming ritual, it defies all logic. Aren’t there enough naturally occurring oozings and flakings going on up there without my slathering it all in gels and spritzes?

Sorry. It was wrong of me to question my wife and it won’t happen again.

And so the routine lumbers on; I wake up in the morning, enjoy a steamy, energizing shower, emerge with bouncing, behaving locks, and immediately castigate them under a lava flow of Herbal Essences. In an ultimately pointless cycle of existence, not unlike the constant draining and replacing of fluids in my car, I alternately punish and reward my hair like a demented foster parent.

As a result I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when my hair behaves like a troubled child, rebelling against the very laws of nature. As I type, my hair grows at an almost perceptible rate out of the sides of my head while the top remains static. The effect is rather koala-like. 

Yet I don’t take all the blame. When you care this little about your hair, you must rely fairly heavily upon hair care professionals. These men and women have failed me spectacularly for the bulk of my adult life. No other industry has given up on me as dramatically as theirs, except perhaps the fitness industry.

Growing up, the barber shop was the place for men to gather together in an overly bright room of no more than eight cubic feet, curse rabidly about their wives, and blow unfiltered tobacco smoke directly onto my corneas.

And those were the good old days. At least back then the barber knew my name and attempted to craft my hirsute mane into something that would compliment my malformed little skull. Here in metro New York the abattoirs posing as barber shops are less inviting than a Green Party rally and more impersonal than a consultation with the kid behind the counter at the engraving store. 

My last haircut at Mario’s Barber Shop (Nanuet Mall, right next to Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, which pretty much tells you everything) lasted under three minutes. I made a point to time it, and I swear I was in that chair for less than three minutes. Now I’m not asking for a scalp massage or strawberry highlights (particularly not from the large Eastern European man who served me), but it would mean oh-so-much to me if the stylist would take a brief peek at the wad of hair he was about to lob off of my head. Does that make me neurotic?

And what happened to the trite conversation that characterized haircuts for me in my youth? To be fair, I can’t remember the last time my hair was attended by an English speaker, but I’m not asking for much. We could just exchange keywords, like “Yankees,” “dry heat,” and “ouch.”

Well, forgive the obvious pun, but that’s all splitting hairs.* Whether or not competent professionals are paying attention to it, I just don’t like my hair and the feeling is obviously mutual.