the skunk works

My gray hair is starting to proliferate right at the front, at the top center of my forehead. I think I can see where this is heading: I'm going to become one of those people who suffer from skunk-stripe grayness, just like Mrs. Spettel, my aged eighth-grade English teacher (she's probably long since shuffled off this mortal coil, so I don't mind naming her). Mrs. Spettel had a habit of dyeing her hair over the weekend: she'd arrive on Monday with perfectly black hair, and by Friday the skunk stripe would be back in full flower. I have no intention of ever coloring my hair: I'm vain in some ways, but not vain about that. So I surmise, at this point, that I'm doomed to a couple decades of skunkitude until my hair either goes entirely gray or falls out completely.

Oh, yeah, that's another thing: no fucking combovers! Although I doubt I'll ever suffer from horseshoe pattern baldness, if such a fate does befall me, I refuse to do combovers. Combovers are silly and sad—the mark of a pathetic, delusional man living a risible fantasy, somehow convincing himself that no one notices his shiny pate. If I ever reach that stage, boys and girls, I'm going to go full-on Buddhist monk and just shave all the hair off. Life will be much simpler that way.


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