It's been almost six months since my last haircut, so it goes without saying that my mane is looking pretty long these days. Apparently, it's starting to get on some people's nerves.
My brother/roommate says my long hair is clogging the drain in the shower. Reports from home indicate my dad is convinced I've become a hippie. And hardly a day goes by that my girlfriend doesn't ask, ""When are you getting your hair cut?""
Well, today is the day folks. Today I get my hair cut.
I never set out to grow my hair long. I did that in high school. All my friends on the soccer team did it. Due to the policies of fascist coaching regimes, most of the other teams at my school had to stay clean cut. Rich, the soccer coach, by contrast, was a portly, bearded mountain man with a hidden love for jam bands. He didn't care what we looked like.
When the season ended, most of us kept our flowing locks. But while most of my soccer friends retreated to basements, bongs and Bob Dylan records, I moved on to basketball. The dynamic here was much different—think Young Republicans in gym shorts. I was ostracized for having hair past my ears. The coaching staff seemed to equate my poor jump shot with the length of my hair. I was relegated to the end of the bench where I sat and watched the team lose just about every single game. It surprised me to learn that while having long hair was certain to diminish one's skills, having short hair did not guarantee success on the court.
My long hair made it all the way through basketball season. In fact, it only got longer when I went off to college. For most of my freshman year, I had hair almost down to my shoulders and, to be honest, I looked like a moron. Even though I knew it was too long, I kept it that way because I was scared. When you grow it out long enough, you forget what it used to look like. I honestly worried that as stupid as I looked with long hair, I'd look even worse with it cut short.
It sounds irrational, but it's not without reason. Midway through my freshman year I did try to get a haircut. But the whole thing went disastrously wrong, and I came out of the salon looking like a 4-year-old girl with a ridiculous bob haircut. I just got myself a nice baseball cap and waited for everything to grow back to normal.
Eventually, I did find myself a decent stylist who gave me a cut I could wear in public, but it took a lot of convincing to let anyone with a pair of scissors anywhere near my noggin. That's the position I find myself in now. I know I need a haircut.
But I'm worried about what lies beneath these golden brown locks. The clogged drain I mentioned earlier isn't just the result of increased length, but also because of increased bulk. That is to say, my hair is falling out. I came to terms with that a long time ago and having longer hair is a decent, if sometimes vain, attempt to mask the balding—Donald Trump being an obvious, extreme example. What if this next haircut finally exposes me as the balding 21-year-old I really am?
Alas, the appointment is set. By 4:00 p.m. today I'll have a new 'do. And I'll be crossing my fingers, that just maybe I'll get my jump shot back whilst I'm at it.
