Last year October, my employer was a corporate sponsor of the Food Bank of North Carolina; employees raised something like $250,000 for the charity through a number of events.

One, the Hallowe'en Hair Challenge, was an opportunity for individuals to, in essence, bet their hair against their colleagues' willingness to donate to the Food Bank. Set a target dollar value, and see who'll pay to watch you have your head shaved. On stage. In front of a crowd of hundreds. A dozen folks - including two women - took the challenge, and had their heads shaved.

A year ago, I had hair. It was falling out, but I had hair. The Food Bank got about $450 from my co-workers for me to shave. [For the record, the women raised about $4000. Well done.]

Since then, my young nieces have insisted I leave it as is:

With the beginning of Autumn, though, I am reminded of one of the downsides of being completely (as opposed to partially) bald: cold weather.

You might not think there would be much difference, insulation-wise, between a partial head of hair and a completely shaven scalp, but whether by coincidence or not, I suffered more and worse colds last winter than ever before.

I'm not going to do that again. Besides, my razor-and-shaving-cream bills have skyrocketed.

So, I'm going to stop shaving by the end of the month. It will seem odd to have hair again. I'll have to buy shampoo again. I'll have to re-acquaint myself with my barber.

I lost my comb, too.

It will change my appearance pretty dramatically, I think, having hair again. Maybe something like this:

Well, a guy can hope.

Posted by Russ at 06:45 PM, October 2, 2003 in Miscellany