hair woes

My hair has officially reached its critical condition length...a true code red hair emergency. I simply can't put it off anymore. I need to get it cut.

And this cutting of the hair has never been an enjoyable activity for me. Not even in the slightest sense of the word. Because if there's one thing I've learned over my many years of having hair, it's that men's hairstyles are severely limited in scope.

Women have a plethora of hairstylings to choose from. In the 70's they could go with the Farrah Fawcett style. In the 80’s you had your feathered, Heather Locklear look. In the 90's, every woman was trying to look like Jennifer Aniston. Us guys, however, are pretty much stuck with three basic choices from which we can choose. These are 'short', 'shorter', or 'buzz cut'.

Years of hair cutting experience has taught me a few tricks of the trade, though. If you go to an old school barbershop, equipped with a candy cane striped pole and all, you're pretty much looking at a buzz cut...or a distant relative of the buzz cut, meaning that each and every hair on your head will not be left any longer than one inch in length.

If you choose one of those 'unisex salons' you're pretty much at the mercy of whichever girl is available. Scissors in hand, she'll ask, 'so how do you want your hair done?' Though this is just a pleasant formality, because you both know exactly how you're going to get your hair done...which will be exactly what she was planning on doing with your hair in the first place. And you can guarantee that your hair will look exactly like the hair of the last guy that sat in her chair, which will look exactly like the next guy that sits in her chair. Because, like it or not, your hair will either end up 'short', 'shorter', or 'buzzed'.

Though I've found that a good gauge of how your hair will end up looking is to look at the picture of the haircutting girl’s boyfriend which will often be taped up somewhere on the mirror near her cutting station. Because whatever her boyfriend's hair looks like, yours will be cut the exact same way. If your haircutter likes really, really, short hair on her boyfriends, you're going to end up with really, really short hair.

The catch is, you're not going to end up either looking like or being her boyfriend. And what these cutters always fail to realize is that while this really, really, short hair may look quite good on the guy she plans on making out with later on, it just looks plain stupid on you. Because this really, really short hair really, really emphasizes just how much your ears stick out, the odd, irregular shape of your noggin, and that weird dent in the back of your head that your hair so nicely hides. And what she effectively does is ensure that you won't be getting a date for at least 4-6 weeks, the time it's going to take to grow this hair back.

This whole hair cutting conundrum was especially bad while I was in junior high. This was back in the 80's, the days of the hair bands, when it was extremely cool to have long hair. Unfortunately, my hair simply won't get long. It's much too wavy and thick to get a good David Lee Roth or Vince Neil thing going on. Rather, my hair gets 'puffy', and I end up looking like Ronald McDonald with a really bad beehive.

I'd go and tell the hair cutting professionals, the same people that I was entrusting my hopes of junior high coolness with, that I wanted a hard-rocking, heavy-metal, chick magnet hair style. And every damn time, I'd walk out with really, really short hair. Sometimes, for those hair cutting girls that took some pity on me, I'd leave with moderately short hair. But never did I end up looking like I could be the drummer for Van Halen or Motley Crue.

And now, with my hair reaching that code red Ronald McDonald look, I'm forced to head out and endure more heartache. Hopes of finding a flattering style are merely wishful thinking...because I know that I'm doomed either 'short' or 'really short'.

And, while I guess that I could find an expensive, upscale salon that could probably give me some pretty impressive looking hair, I just keep thinking that it would be a lot of money to spend on hair that's going to grow back anyway. And I'm not really on good enough terms with my hair, those stubborn little strands that simply refuse to cooperate, to justify lending them that much dough. Especially when there's parts of me, like my stomach, that I get along with so much better, and would much rather lend money to.