Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Story of My Hair.

Man, what a log ride it's been with this bald spot of mine. Last time I wrote I had just started with Silas Dong, that random hair and skin doctor I found in Chinatown, and I was all jazzed about his acupuncture-type therapy and immense personal calmness. Remember that sign I told you about in his window, the one with the three pictures of the top of a dude's head, goin' from totally empty of hair to totally covered again? I read it wrong.

See, I figured that Chinese stuff got read right-to-left, you know, the opposite from our way. Turns out I basically read the sign backwards, because it was written left-to-right, with the full-head-of-hair guy gradually gettin' balder in each panel. Silas Dong was a hair loss specialist, alright. A SPECIALIST IN MAKING YOU LOSE YOUR HAIR.

I almost had a heart attack when I went in for my second session and he proudly showed me a clear template with rings on it. On a small center ring was the date of my first visit, and he beamed when he showed me I had "grown" two full rings since then. He got really confused when I started yellin', "No, I...naw, man! What did you DO?! What have I DONE?!" I even knelt on the floor for a second, covering my dime with my hands and wonderin' if I was gonna cry.

He sized up the situation pretty quick. In about six seconds he had handed me his sister's card, Phyllis Dong. (I guess a lot of honkeys mess up when choosin' Chinese therapies, so they have these things at the ready.) Phyllis is a hair re-GROWTH specialist (I even wrote down the word re-GROWTH? on a note pad and underlined it and she smiled and nodded). Phew, man. I tried to hand Silas the three hundred I owed him, but he was all wise and smilin' about it, pushin' my hand back, so when he turned around to get me a copy of his card "in case I should ever reconsider," I slipped the cash under a legal pad on his desk. I know he knew I did that, so I just shook his hand and headed a few doors down to his sister's office.

Her technique is basically the same, and I've already grown back the two rings I lost. Re-growing the stuff that went before Silas is takin' more time, but I'm confident somethin' will come of it. I figure, I'll be happy if my dime gets small enough so that Thaddeus can style it like a super-intense cowlick. I seen some large cowlicks in my time, and I never think the dude is baldin' or dodgin'. I wonder if Clooney has a cowlick in the back...time to get on Google Images.

See you later, Chochachos, and thanks for all the letters of support in my dark time.