Temptation

I am overdue for a haircut.

I know this because the other day when I groggily stumbled into my bathroom in the predawn darkness and flipped on the light, I was startled by the hairy beast-like apparition that glowered back at me from my mirror.

I looked somewhat like a Mountain Man who came out second best in a bar fight with Big Foot. Having a rather bushy beard be half-matted down to my face didn’t help my appearance any. Fortunately, my wife was still asleep so was spared being startled by my unkempt appearance or left wondering if the man she had married had been replaced by a somewhat balding brown bear that had awakened from a winter snooze.

It is not that I haven’t tried to get my hair cut, it is just that things have a habit of happening to prevent me from actually making the appointments I do schedule. Often this is not my fault. Really, it isn’t.

I start out with the best intentions and set a date weeks in advance, only to have someone schedule a meeting, ribbon cutting, or visit from some self-important dignitary that I need to cover instead of getting my hair cut. It doesn’t take too many times canceling and scrambling to reschedule to have stylists rolling their eyes and fitting me in here or there, knowing I am unreliable at best in actually making it to an appointment. I understand this. The only thing predictable about my schedule in the past several years has been its level of unpredictability.

My daughter has on several occasions offered to take clippers to my hair, and presumably my rather bushy beard. I have at times come close to taking her up on the offer. Usually the moment of weakness is when I have had the same clump of hair fall into my face for the 57th time while attempting to do something.

My bigger concern with getting a military grade buzz cut is that I have a fairly significant receding hairline that goes back on either side of my scalp leaving a mohawklike tuft in the center. While I am far from vain when it comes to appearance — I do actually have some self awareness in that regard — I would be worried about accelerating the receding hairline by cutting it back too far.

Yes, I know that is what baseball caps are made for, and that there is no shame in having a hairline that is creeping dangerously close to the neckline of the back of my shirt. But I still attempt to cling to some small delusion about not being really as old as I feel when I get up on the Monday morning after a bonspiel.

You know what, maybe I should forget about getting a haircut altogether. I should embrace my hair while I still have some of it on my head. I don’t know if I could pull off the aging hippy dippy look, but maybe go all-in for a viking-style complete with growing my beard long enough to put in braids and maybe some metal beads into it.

On second thought, maybe I won’t. The last time I had hair of any significant length was when I was 22 and was in college and at that point, I had gone more than three years without a haircut, largely because I was a broke college student who prioritized buying Ramen and the occasional 12-pack over investing in a my appearance.

My younger sister keeps trying to get me to purchase beard care creams, lotions and salves. Perhaps missing the point that one of the reasons many men grow out their beards is out of not wanting to go through the hassle of daily facial care regimes such as shaving. The day I have to rub stuff on my face for my beard to look pretty, is the day I will shave it all off.

My wife has dropped some not so subtle hints about how I should consider dying my beard to match my boring brown hair. It is not that I doubt it would make me look younger, but it is that I don’t want to be accused of false advertising by trying to appear younger than I am.

I really need a haircut. I should quit stalling and break down and schedule one.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.