(Oh boy, this is gonna’ be a good one!)

Irony.

It’s an interesting thing...

There I was at Mighty Dollar the other night (Wow! Surprise, surprise!), when I became fascinated by something in the health & beauty section.

They had like, a five-gallon drum of hair gel for, (you guessed it), only $1!

"Ohhhhh," I said, "I could use that!"

They had all kinds of pretty colors, too.

I selected pink (‘Cos I thought it smelled the best), and made my purchase.

Later than night, I wanted to use my new, lifetime supply of hair gel, but noticed my hair was, well, you know, just not, "happening."

I’d brush it this way, then that way, back, then forwards, and it seemed like there just wasn’t much there to work with.

Ah-ha! I needed a haircut. That would do it.

Even though it was late, I convinced my wife, Renee’, to give me a trim (Oh, stop it!).

But first, I had to dismantle the trimmer because it wouldn’t work.

It took 30 minutes, a pair of new batteries (don’t ask where they came from), a set of tweezers, and a piece of used duct tape to fix it.

Whew.

I sat patiently-feeling the trimmer glide along my scalp.

"Feels like you’re getting it pretty close," I said.

Buzz, buzz.

No answer.

"Well, are you?" I asked.

"Um...yeah...I guess," Renee’ said.

Buzz, buzz.

"How’s it going up there?" I asked.

Buzz, buzz.

"Hey," Renee’ said. "Haven’t you always wanted to shave your head?"

"Like, 10 years ago!" I said. "I think I grew out of that phase."

Buzz, buzz.

"Yeah, maybe you should just shave your head," she said.

"NO!" I shouted. "Why would I do that?"

Buzz, buzz.

"Well, maybe because you have to?" she squeaked.

I reached up...and felt skin.

More skin, then hair, then a little more skin, and some hair...here...and there.

"I think I better go look in the mirror," I said.

"I’m going to go check on the kids," my wife said-running down the hallway.

When I looked in the bathroom mirror, I was...perplexed.

Have you ever seen those cartoons when some kind of goofy animal is holding a bomb, or a stick of dynamite, and there’s an explosion, and the next thing you see is this goofy animal all charred, with little sprigs of hair sticking up?

BOOM!

That was me.

"Well?" I heard Renee’ say from the bedroom-approximately 50 feet away. "What do you think?"

"I...don’t...know," I said. "Hey, honey?"

"Yes?" she replied.

"Where’s my hair?" I inquired.

"On the floor, I guess?" she hypothesized.

Hmmm.

I mentally ran through all my options-which were...none.

There was one, and it was to just go ahead and shave my head.

"You know," I said to my wife," "I’m just going to let you finish it off."

Buzz, buzz.

I’m pretty sure a tear fell into my new, now-useless, hair gel.

The next day, I arrived at work, and the first person who saw me said, "Oh my goodness! Did you...Is your..." and they scampered away, shaking their head (Which, by the way, was covered with hair...unlike mine).

The next person I saw was more direct.

"It looks like you shaved your head."

"Yeah."

"So, you did shave your head?"

"No, actually my wife did."

"Was she mad at you?"

"No, no...well, I don’t think she was."

"I think she was."

Hmmm.

Throughout the day, people would either look at point, or just look, and I had devised a litany of responses to the question, "Where’s your hair?"

My answers varied from, "I don’t know, I thought YOU had it!," to "It fell behind the refrigerator," to "Well, I had it when I left the house this morning," or the oft-repeated, "What hair? I don’t HAVE any hair!"

Basically, I don’t know how to act without hair.

Should I dress differently?

How about wearing a cap all the time?

Do I need to shave off my facial hair?

Am I to shave my legs now, too?

This is new to me, and I am startled every time I walk past a mirror.

"Hey, you kinda look like ‘Stone Cold,’ " my wife said in attempt to cheer me up.

OK, that maybe would have been cool 10 or 12 years ago, and it maybe would be cool if I was a buff, muscular athlete, but I don’t look like Stone Cold. I look more like that crazy guy in Full Metal Jacket. (Me love you long time!)

"Do I really look OK without any hair?" I asked my wife. (I have learned that question is the male equivalent of a woman asking, "Do these pants make my butt look fat?")

"I like to rub your head now," my wife said. "Kinda like a buddha."

Hmmm.

"Besides," she said. "It will grow back...I think."