They cut my hair off last night, all of it, the bastards. The housing office should never have put me in this dorm. I have nothing in common with most of the guys on this floor. At least they gave me a single room. It isn’t a jock dorm, but it might as well be. The dorm is stupidly designed, too, at least the bathrooms: 3 shower stalls, 4 toilets, 2 urinals, but only 3 sinks. With most everybody trying to make breakfast before a 9 o’clock class and having slept as long as possible, it makes for quite a jam-up.

That’s where the trouble was. At the start of the year I had fairly long hair. I don’t know why I had let it get so long, but I had. probably 6 inches on the top and down a little bit over my ears and collar. I hadn’t bothered to get it cut all summer. It was the longest I had ever had it. I took pretty good care of it, since I do care about my appearance. After my shower, I had to use the hair drier, comb and brush it and get it so it looked decent. And all this took time. And that, of course, was the problem. It didn’t help the morning jam up. If they had been nice about it, I would have done something about it--got up earlier maybe. But they weren’t. Lots of cracks about ‘pretty hair’, ‘gonna get a perm?’, things like that. And ‘Get a haircut!’, ‘Get a real guy’s haircut!’ ,’If you had a buzzcut you wouldn’t take so long!’ . They started calling me ‘blondie’ and really went after the haircut thing.

Now I am a stubborn guy, very, very stubborn. Before the real razzing started I had considered getting my hair cut pretty short-something like an Ivy League. But there was no way these clowns were going to tell me what to do; so I let it grow! I didn’t even get a trim! And I took my time in the mornings, since the longer it got, the more time it took. The razzing continued and got a little nastier. Nobody tried to get rough, since I am not a little guy and know my way around the martial arts real well. I guess being on the Judo team helped.

Well, yesterday they really blindsided me! I was sitting in my room studying when about 8 guys came busting in the door. Before I could really react they had jumped me. Well, maybe in the movies one guy can do in 8, but I knew when I was licked, so I didn’t do more than a minimum resistance. The pulled my arms behind me and snapped on a pair of handcuffs. I don’t know if they were real or where they got them, but they were effective. A length of clothesline around my ankles and I wasn’t going anywhere except down the hall to the lounge (not under my own power).

They were going to hold court - kangaroo court! One guy was acting as the judge, another the prosecutor and the rest of them were the jury. It became obvious in about 30 seconds what they were up to when the prosecutor presented his ‘case’. All about the prisoner tying up the bathroom in the morning with his ‘obsessive and excessive attention to his hairdo.’ The charge was ‘obstruction of facilities’. They even called a couple of witnesses. If it hadn’t been me, it might have been funny. The judge asked if I had any defense and I tried to say that I had as much right to use the bathroom as they did and that they could always get up earlier. I didn’t get much of it out since the ‘jury’ shouted me down. Then, “Gentlemen (hah!) of the jury, what is your verdict?? “ “GUILTY!! Hang him!! Off with his head!! Off with his hair!!”

“Silence in court! I sentence the prisoner to a haircut. Are the executioners ready?”

I was roughly pushed down into a chair and a couple of guys came towards me with a pair of electric clippers. “Which attachment shall we use, your honor?” holding the 1/2 inch and the 1/4 inch in the air. “The short one.” “No attachment!” “Clip him bald!” “Yes, really skin him!!” This from the impartial jury. The judge:”His is a serious crime, use no attachment. Proceed with the execution!”

The clippers sprang to life. Instinctively I closed my eyes as they came towards my forehead and I felt the chattering blades run back up the center of my head. Then they ran up from my right sideburn, up and up onto the top of my head. I opened my eyes and watched the long locks of my blonde hair falling into my lap and onto the floor. They kept swapping the clippers around; it seemed like everyone wanted a piece of the action and a hunk of my hair. The weirdest feeling was feeling the clippers mowing off my hair where clippers had never been; feeling it happen but not being able to see it or touch it. The last guy with the clippers was one of the few reasonably nice guys. He ran them repeatedly over my head and told me “I’ll even this out so you don’t look like the moths got you.”

Then the rope was untied and the cuffs taken off. I sat there for a minute with my lap full of a mound of my hair and finally reached up to touch my head. All over sandpaper stubble. I went to my room and looked in the mirror. It sure was different!! I looked really bald in the overhead light, with my blonde stubble. Looked like someone else - a distant relative maybe. Not bad, but different!

Well, I had thought of getting a short haircut after the school year, but this wasn’t in my plan! Damn! No more shampoo; no more conditioner; no more hair dryer; no more brushing and combing. The worst was that they had won. I looked at the reflection of the bald guy in the mirror for a while and then it came to me.

I am a stubborn guy. Damn stubborn!! So I would just have to change my morning routine. So this morning I began. After I had showered I shaved my face and then wet down my stubbly scalp. A handful of shaving foam carefully rubbed onto my head, around my ears, up the back and sides. A little more foam and lather the crown and farther forward, all the way to the front. Have to let that stay for a bit while I get out a fresh 3 bladed razor. Short, careful strokes, going ‘with the grain’ so as not to pull. Down the back, down the sides, down the top of my head. Have to rinse the lather off the razor frequently. Then more lather from the can, and cover the scalp again. This time I shave against the grain, up from the forelock, back along the top of my head, up the back and sides this time, and carefully in various directions around the crown. Rinse off the lather with the washcloth and check carefully for missed spots. Found a couple and removed them with the razor. Rinsed again, dried my smooth head and rubbed on some after shave lotion. There!!

Elapsed time 2 1/2 minutes longer than before when I had hair! And I will have to do this every morning, since I will be keeping my head totally smooth, shiny and bald for the rest of the year!

The End