This morning I was driving along the freeway listening to the radio when a commercial about hair transplants took control of the radio airwaves. The commercial was basically equating a man losing his hair to a man losing his ability to do…man things.A few months ago I wouldn’t have been offended by this bold-faced attack on the fragile balding male ego. I would have laughed it off, for it was an attack on a fraternity of men that I didn’t belong to. The Phi Beta Balding fraternity. But lately I’m beginning to see more of my hair in places where it’s not supposed to be (shower drain, hairbrush, cereal bowl), and less of my hair where it’s supposed to be-imbedded in my scalp.

There is a condition many men suffer from. It is called Balding Denial Syndrome (or BDS for short). Men don’t want to admit that they’re losing hair. If the shower drain is clogged with misplaced hair follicles, someone else must have misplaced them. Your hair follicles are right where you left them-on your pillow for safekeeping.

When someone mentions the fact that your hair appears to be thinning, you begin spouting rationalizations like: “Must be that cheap store brand shampoo I used,” or “My personal hair stylist is weeding out the weak hair so the stronger hair can thrive.” Of course, the only person buying these lame excuses is the same guy selling them. Everyone else is muttering to him- or herself, “That guy’s got terminal BDS and doesn’t even know it.”

From the dawn of time, bald men have been selling the “bald is sexy” theory. Hieroglyphics in an ancient cave reveals the following story. “Og walks out of cave. Runs into Ug. Ug laughs at Og. Points at Og’s head, says, ‘Og no hair on head. Look like Dinosaur egg.’ Og says, ‘Ug may think Og look funny, but Og make Mogina weak in knees’.”

Now I’ve been told that I have been balding for several years. Lady Debby, bless her heart, has been telling me the same thing for years: “I love you even though you’re going bald.” This must be some type of spousal reinforcement policy wives of balding guys are required to declare to counter the depression balding guy’s experience when faced with the realization that everyone else on the planet now finds them about as repulsive as road kill.

The difficulty I’ve had with balding is that until recently, I was unaware that it was actually happening. People start balding in different locations on their head. Some balding starts in the front of the head and it works its way back…like a thresher machine clear-cutting a field while gathering the fruits of the harvest…only with the guy who’s just had his lush follicle field harvested, there is no next season. No new crop to plant. Your soil is no longer fertile. And it’s obvious every time you look in the mirror, or watch helplessly as the sun reflects off your forehead (like a prism) and sets things on fire.

Other people, like me, start balding from the crown, which is really difficult to see. It’s easy to deny one’s balding if one has no visible proof that it’s happening. Not only that, but I’m 6 feet, 2 inches tall, which means not too many people can look down on my head and say “Hey Buddy, aim that spotlight somewhere else.”

So what was it that finally caused me to come to unpleasant terms with my displaced hair? Photographs taken of someone who looks identical to me in every way except one. They had a bald spot. Well, it wasn’t really a bald spot-more like a vacant hair lot. At first I thought it was a photo manipulation joke gone terribly wrong. But the only other person in my family who knows how to manipulate photos is my daughter and she’s too busy cutting and pasting photos of herself into photos with young male celebrities (with full heads of hair).

The problem I’m now facing is very alarming. I’m suddenly finding that a lot of the hair on my head has gone AWOL, and I’m quite sure it won’t be returning. This makes my morning hair routine no longer routine.

Old hair routine:
1. Dry thick head of hair (10 minutes).
2. Style thick head of hair (5 minutes).
3. Enjoy the rest of the day with thick head of hair (23 hours and 45 minutes).

New hair routine:
1. Dry thinning head of hair (12 seconds).
2. Style thinning hair (1 hour, 33 minutes or 3 minutes per strand of hair).
3. Worrying the rest of the day that one strand of carefully placed hair will become misplaced, thus exposing another patch of barren scalp real estate to an unsympathetic world (22 hours and 37 minutes).

So now that denial is no longer a viable option, I’m forced to deal with this malady before it completely erodes what little self-esteem my departing hairs have left me with.

There are actually quite a few options to choose from.

1. Cue Ball. This is a common option because it gives the appearance of a deliberate head shave as opposed to non-deliberate hair loss, which gives people the illusion that once you grow tired of the bald look, you can actually re-grow your hair.

2. Grow a Ponytail. This is where guys will allow what little hair they have left on the back of their head to grow disproportionately long. This is done to visually even things out. No hair in front + long hair in back = medium-length hair all around. Basic math, right?

3. Hair pills, hair creams, hair ointments, hair tonics, hair laxatives, etc…. These balding cures are usually advertised in reputable places like telephone poles, or e-mails that start out with, “Are you tired of looking at that bald guy through the window and then realizing it’s a mirror? If so, send $49.95 plus $19.95 for S&H for your first tube of Head Turf lotion. Dr. Wesman Glesnagg, a noted Hairmologist, guarantees that after 6,729 applications of Head Turf Lotion, you will begin to see amazing results, or we’ll refund your money. Disclaimer: The address that you’ll be returning the unused portion of the product to for a full refund is actually an abandoned building in a town ignored by most maps, so the chances of you actually receiving a refund is slim to none, and Slim just invested your money on the horses…and lost.”

4. Toupee. Rugs that fit on top of your head and are supposed to mimic real hair. Unfortunately, even the best toupee can be spotted from as far away as a space satellite. The advantage to wearing a toupee is that instead of waiting for an hour in a salon to get your hair cut by Ralphina, you can actually drop your hair off on your way to work and pick it up on the way home. The disadvantage is that it closely resembles a small furry rodent that could turn on you if you try and part it on the wrong side.

5. Comb Over. This style is where you allow one side of your hair to grow shoulder length. You then take those elongated strands and comb them over the top of your hairless head and connect them with the hair on the other side. Hair bridge over Bald River. Comb-over guys purchase 99% of the world’s supply of combs. Chances are, if you walk into a restroom and some guy is combing his hair, it’s a comb-over guy making emergency bridge repairs.

6. Hair Transplant. This is by far the most invasive of all options. This is the follicle equivalent of receiving a donor organ. Someone with a surplus of hair donates it to someone with a shortage of hair. Not knowing the surgical procedure for hair transplants, I can only guess that it’s similar to putting an artificial Christmas tree together.

The artificial tree has numerous holes that are filled with artificial branches. In similar fashion, donor hair is inserted into holes on the donoree’s head. And like other transplants, there is a risk that the donoree’s head will reject the donor’s hair. This has got to be the ultimate rejection. When I was in junior high I had a girlfriend named Lorraine. After returning from vacation with my family I immediately went to see her (she lived down the street). She saw me approaching, screamed, and ran into her house. I was crushed. But imagine after several weeks of wining and dining your new head of hair, your doctor (who was once a patient himself) sits you down and says, “I’m afraid your new hair finds you repulsive.” Big ouch.

If you are struggling with baldness, I can sympathize with you. There are a number of options you can choose from if you want to do something other than just accept it and get on with your loser life. I have chosen to accept it. Am I comfortable with that decision? Not always. I see pictures of me when I was younger. When my waist was thin and my hair was thick. Girls looked at me differently back then. I was what they now refer to as eye candy. I’m not eye candy anymore. I’m eye broccoli.

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Check out L. Dustin Twede’s website at www.ldustintwede.com. He can be reached at ddtwede@yahoo.com.