College Elective Surgery
His surgeon assured him hair loss was caused by excessive testosterone. But he knew that's just Latin for sperm buildup.
Handing him a bottle of The Helsinki Formula on his twenty-ninth birthday his mother said, "Bald is beautiful."
"So is a sunset Ma. That doesn't mean anybody wants to blow it."
Overwhelmed by his Socratic reasoning she wondered if it was too late for him to pursue law. He wondered if it was too late to lose his virginity.
Eventually he would have sex. He was thirty and completely naked except for the Mets cap.
Eventually he would marry. His wife would give him children and fresher smelling Mets caps.
On their wedding night she insisted balding was sexy. But he knew like all women she was turned on by anything that made a man weak and needy.
The next morning she told him he was great. He knew he had to be.
There was nothing sadder than a bald man working to satisfy a woman in bed. Sometimes he could barely watch.
There was always a toupee. But if hair loss was humiliating the first time, it had to be worse the second time after a hard sneeze.
With the reunion one year away, he got plugs.
"Tell the survivors of Hurricane Andrew to let nature take its course," he told his wife. She wanted to spend the plug money on insulin for her diabetes.
"Sometimes nature is wrong. I deserve hair."
Doctor Hmong removed hair from the side of his head and planted it on top. There were minor side effects. He could no longer pronounce "Wimbledon." And no matter how hard he tried the lyrics to the theme song from The Andy Griffith Show completely escaped him.
On that soft Spring evening his scalp flowered with thick, curly radiant tresses. They all had the consistency of a baboon's pubic hair. But it was hair.
A month later pictures from the reunion arrived. He looked even better than he remembered. Time to tackle those chins for the 30th.
