1. I'm married now, my personal appearance doesn't matter anymore. I'm taking this one all the way, folks. Since I tore my meniscus, I haven't been able to exercise for a couple months-- but instead of altering my diet to help offset this fact at least a tiny bit, I find myself having conversations with the employees at Yello Sub that include questions like "Wow, you already have enough stamps for another free sandwich? Didn't you just turn one of these cards in? How often are you eating here?"
2. It's been a typical Kansas summer, meaning every single day for the last month or so, it's been right around Nick Lachey, with few exceptions. It's effing hot, all the time, and it's nice to not have a lot of hair. (Get it? 98 Degrees? Nick Lachey? Ahhh, you get it.)
3. I needed to do an inventory on my hair.
To speak in generalities, there are two ways to go bald. You can start with the receding hairline in the front, like Steve Carell in season 1 of The Office (before he got plugs or a transplant or whatever), or you can get a bald spot in the back like Manu Ginobili, and have it spread from there. For the last year or so, I've been developing a tidy little Ginobili, and watching it slowly spread its tentacles of baldness across the rest of my dome. So I needed to buzz the rest of my hair off and assess the exact damage here.
(Just to confirm, we are NOT talking about the small bald spot on the back of my head. I've dealt with those questions since 1st grade, when I fell through a trap door in the school library, landed on my head, and killed the hair follicles in that spot forever. A favorite game of mine when I was
Anyway, all things considered, I'm not horribly concerned about going bald. I would've thought that I would handle this much worse, but I'm not losing any sleep over it or anything. I'm also not exactly doing the Happy Drunk Ron Swanson dance over the news either, but whatever. It happens to something like 70% of men. Such is life. There are worse things.
Here's the only reason I'm pissed about it: my entire life, all I've ever heard is that male pattern baldness is dependent upon your maternal grandfather. If he doesn't go bald, then you're safe. I've heard some version of that "rule" dozens of times, and never heard anything that refutes that statement. And yet, my Mom's Dad is in his nineties, and he's running around with a full head of hair, slicking it back like he's Michael Fucking Coreleone. So why exactly am I going bald? Who's been lying to me here? Why did you let me get my hopes up? That's my main beef in all of this.
I've always been a big believer in "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." Actually, it's more like "Expect the worst, and distrust everything else until it becomes reality." This is the same reason why I don't want to buy a new iPod, even though mine is almost eight years old and the screen is mostly shattered. I'm convinced that with my luck with computers, if I plug a new (but unfamiliar) iPod into my computer, my iTunes will crash and I'll lose all my music in the blink of an eye. It's the same reason why, when KU was up 40-12 in the Final Four against North Carolina a few years ago, and the entire bar was spraying beers and celebrating, I was standing on my chair and motioning for everyone to settle down because there was too much time left. It's the same reason why, when I spray a tee shot near the water, the absolute worst thing you can say to me is "I'm sure it stayed dry- you're fine, dude." Because if we drive up to that ball and it's in the lake, now I'm taking my anger out on you for telling me I was OK, when I was already prepared to take a penalty stroke. On the flip side, it's the same reason why I can have such a good attitude if I lose money gambling (relative to most gamblers.) To me, that money was spent the second I deposited it into my online account; in my head I'm expecting to lose every bet I make. If I cash anything out, it's bonus. Just let me assume the worst, and I'll be pleasantly surprised if that turns out not to be the case.
If I would've known that my potential baldness didn't rest entirely on the shoulders of my full-follicled Grandpa, I would've better prepared myself for the possibility of going bald. But instead, I've been going along all these years, taking my hair for granted, not ever thinking I was living on a shortened timeline. Now I feel like an asshole. An asshole who will probably be bald in a few years, hooking tee shots into the water, crashing his iTunes, and wondering how it all slipped away.
I blame you, Grandpa.
