In pondering the ineffable state of the world, I came to the resigned but inevitable conclusion that…I need a hair cut. I’m not talking about a little trimming here and there of the bangs, the back, taking some off the top. No, I’m talking about a full-on Bic job, the kind you see nuclear military facility MP’s wearing.
I’ve been growing my hair out for the last, oh, eight months or so, with only a trim about two weeks before Christmas to help even things out. Nothing overly dramatic, nothing that would ruin the slightly scrappy look I had cultivated. I wash my hair everyday, but when I get out of the shower, I look in the mirror in despair and defiance. On the one hand, my hair is a mess, it’s uncombable, and too thin to do anything with. On the other, I will not, I will not, I will not pay $100 for a stylist to do something unspeakably n’Sync-ey to it.
But really, that’s just a side issue, a way around my particular problem.
Like Ozymandias or Yogi Bera (“Look upon my works, ye ironic, and laugh in feigned amusement”), I have developed this annoying habit of dropping little pieces of myself everywhere I go, like pieces of stone from a statue, or quips and one-liners from a baseball player. Only I’m talking literal pieces of myself. Yes, it’s true.
I have dandruff.
It seems to be a mild case, brought on about a half a month ago with a diet that consisted solely of Bologna and mustard, and the fact that I made the mistake of buying Suave (which I hate) instead of Head & Shoulders, which I’ve used for years upon years and love dearly. It turns out, that manufacturers, at least of shampoo, purposefully make their packaging look like all the other packaging, so that at a simple glance, you appear to be buying a name brand when you are in fact a dupe.
The perils of wanting to get through Wal-Mart as quickly as possible should be self-evident by now.
At any rate, Suave hardly has the healing and flake-reducing power of my beloved Head & Shoulders. I discovered this through an embarrassing series of events that led me to wonder if I didn’t have some kind of new Wonder Snow dispenser hanging over my pillow, releasing thousands of tiny flakes of unmeltable snow each night whilst I slept.
I’d not experienced the wounded feeling of realizing that I had flakes in nearly eight years, and yet here I was, contemplating the Ali Sheedy-like sheddings of my nocturnal mane. Let me tell you, it was almost more than my troubled soul could bear. And by troubled soul, I mean my ego.
The next time I took a shower, I made a special note of the shampoo. A HA! Suave, you old devil! This was my culprit. It took me a couple of days to finally justify making the drive to Wal-Mart, but after doing a little internet research on the causes of dandruff and ways of stopping it in its tracks, I decided that trusty Head & Shoulders had never let me down before, and purchased two.
I am happy to report that since returning to my first love in shampoos, my hair has started to recover from its Suave Debacle. Fewer flakes every day, and a healthier, less itchy scalp. And the self-confidence to post about my dandruff experience on my website.
Now that’s the power of Head & Shoulders!