How many times have I said that and never did (pull my hair out, that is), and yet the end result was the same.

Whatever it was or whatever happened, it must have been exasperating enough to have said it and probably said it many times, though.

The term has something to do with worry.  When I worry I don’t have to pull my hair out.  It falls out naturally.

Could that be the cure?  No worry…no hair loss?

Vain?  Who me?

I’m not vain.  I’ve never been vain.

It’s doesn’t make any difference what people think about me, how they perceive me.  I can only be me.

It isn’t important that I am attractive to the other sex. I can only be me.

Disregard that I am impeccable and stylish  in my dress, and groomed beyond the pale.  Disregard that my face is scrubbed and my teeth are polished.  Disregard that I am closely clean shaven and never a (what’s-left-of-them) hair out of place.  Disregard that I make every attempt to appear to be in intelligent, and witty and wise beyond my years.

Disregard that I have attempted to iron the wrinkles from my face, and have removed any vestige of hair from my ears and nostrils.

Disregard that I’ve tried Rograin and other products to stunt the loss of hair.  Disregard that I used prescription shampoo.  Disregard that I collaborated with a dermatologist,  Disregard that I have numerous hats, and disregard that I have studied the process of toupee making just-in-case.

Am I vain?  Well….I….uh….you betcha!!!

How can I divert their eyes from my baldness? We should be looking into each others eyes…eyeball to eyeball. But no! Their eyes always seem to go upward, drawn towards  glisten of my forehead, then scalp.

Are they admiring eyes? Are they eyes of disgust?

How can I divert their eyes from my baldness? A bright, multi colored shirt would certainly drive their eyes downward. Nudity might work, but would be more disgusting than the baldness. No! I need something on the face that would direct their line of vision to another location.

Aha! A ring or a bauble. And all it would take is a nose piercing, an ear piercing or a tongue piercing.

Perhaps a nose ring would do it.

What was one of the smartest things I ever did when I first noticing those hair in the sink?  No! Not the whiskers.

After a continuing pattern of loose hairs, I assumed that I was on the road to baldness, and there seemed to be few if any option other than to let Mother Nature have her way.

Since I had already discounted the clinics (per a previous message) as being a possibility to heal my hair.   The only thing that made any sense was to talk to a dermatologist as they specialized in skin…..and after all, bald is certainly skin.

The doctors name escaped me many years ago, but I do recall that he gave me an injection of a substance of which I never knew.  He prescribed a then prescription shampoo which I used faithfully for a year or two.  There is no objective and positive proof, but whatever was in the injection, and whatever the shampoo contained, they seemed to diminish the rate of loss of hair.

Then I stopped.  And so then again began the hair loss.

The Answer!

There they were, almost daily. The ‘restore your hair’ ads. In the daily newspaper and in the magazines. There may have been a few ads that promoted products that would be applied to your hair…um..er….bald spot; but mainly I recall the picture of a nice looking doctor with a full head of hair and wearing a stethoscope around his neck, touting his hair restoration clinic. Why would he need a stethoscope?

Even though as a young man, I didn’t see that I had a problem, yet I viewed those ads daily as though they were an omen of things to come….or things to go, if you prefer.

And the omen came to pass.

Because I don’t have hair, my head gets mighty cold in the Winter.  When I had hair, I rarely wore a hat, but now that my hair is gone, I need a cap/hat when the weather turns cold.

My choice of a hat is a baseball cap featuring one of my favorite baseball teams (preferably the Cleveland Indians or the local AAA team).  I have a few NASCAR hats as well, and because I have those hats, people assume that I am a NASCAR fan; when in reality I know very little about the sport.  I had a Greek fisherman’s cap many years ago, but it eventually became fodder for the dumpster.

I’ve tried on a few western hats, panamas, fedoras, but I just don’t look good in a brimmed hat.

Maybe a derby or a skimmer might be more my style.

Grow hair! Grow hair fast!  Grow hair faster!  Grow hair the easy way!

Balderdash seems like an appropriate mild expletive to all those products that claim to re-grow hair.  I’ve tried a few, but other than growing a few fuzzies, nothing has worked.

The before and after pictures are especially annoying.  The man on the left is balder than an American Eagle, and the picture of the same guy on the right has a full head of hair after only eight weeks of using Brand X Hair Restoration Elixir (or pick your own favorite ad).

The only thing that might work that well and that quickly might be the system used in the video at the top of this page.  The only drawback is the color.  Now if only Ghia Pet could develop their product into browns, blacks, blonds and auburns.

Sounds a little like the toupee or not toupee question, doesn’t it?

Shampoo has a special purpose, or several purposes.  Cleanse the hair, remove the oils, soften the hair, manageability of the hair.

When I had hair, I used shampoo regularly.  Now that I have virtually none, why do I continue to use shampoo?

If I’m using ‘Irish Spring’ on my face, why don’t I just extend that to my extended face…my scalp?  It not only would save the expense of buying shampoo, but I could save a few second by combining two separate cleansings.

So do I recommend ‘Head and Shoulders’ or ‘Zest’ for a cleaner, healthier, happier scalp?

The solution for a full head of hair? A comb over!

A comb over only requires growing my hair extra long on the left side. This would also reduce my barbers cutting time, as he would only have to trim the right side.

When it’s (the left side) grown to the proper length…too long….then it can be skillfully combed across the top of the head.

Of course the larger bald area in square inches, the longer the hair needs to be.

What’s the real secret to a comb over? Lowering the part as close to the ear (left ear in my case) as possible, then sweeping the remaining hair across the pate to the other side. Allow a slightly forward stroke so as to cover as much of the forehead as possible.

For years even as my hair was declining, I used the narrow tooth end of the comb. Now I might have to consider the wide tooth end of the comb, or perhaps a rake.

When I wake up in the morning and the eight inches of hair on the left side of my head is unkempt and unruly, while the right side is nearly pristine; I would probably call this a bad bald day.

This is starting to get complicated.

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?

A slightly modified excerpt of a sonnet written by Bill Shakespeare a long time ago.