There was a time when the sheer excess of hair on my head made the visit to a barber shop an hour-long event. On hot summer days I could shake the sweat from my thick, chestnut brown locks, run my fingers over my still moist head and maintain complete scalp coverage.
Now when it gets hot outside I have to put sunscreen on my head, or wear a baseball cap. I hate baseball.
I used to sit in the bathtub and dunk my head under water, then slick my hair back like I was Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. My mother could mouse my hair for those christmas family photos and the millions of follicular growths would obey.
Today I hardly have enough infrastructure atop my head to support a styling product much less the thick creaminess that is mouse.
Yes, I'm talking about my day to day struggle with male pattern baldness. As my brother puts it, I will reach a point where my shinning head will become my surname and my patients will remember me as "their bald doctor." The loss was so subtle throughout college that I didn't have any time to prepare for the awkward looks from the barber; first looking at me, then back at my father (and his full head of black hair) and asking if there's a milkman in town whose bald. But as I've grown older, and wiser, I've come to accept the daily casualties I find on my pillow case, in the shower, and on the floor. Everyday I watch this follicular genocide and know there are no actions to halt this monstrous march toward egg-headedness, but I am at peace. For what it's worth, They've stopped carding me at every bar I go to know; it's the silver lining, right?
