Balding blues

I spent last weekend in South Carolina, a place invented to show Wisconsinites what true humidity feels like. (It’s a locker room where hot showers have been running non-stop for two weeks, in case you wanted to know.)

I was there to visit my brother and his family. I also hoped to start a collection of Confederate flag T-shirts and purchase a red, white and blue gun rack. (I’m joking. I wanted a Confederate-colored gun rack. I heart the 1860s!) Anyway, it was a fun visit. The relationship between my brother and me has really grown over the years. Instead of constantly arguing over video games and Wiffle ball, we occasionally argue over video games and Wiffle ball.

Of course, I still can’t beat him at Madden football. (It used to be Tecmo Bowl. But the change in video worlds has not improved my winning percentage.) Kids, if you have a big brother or sister who beats you at every game you play, a word of advice: Give up now. He or she will continue to defeat you well into adulthood. If you do win, it will be because he or she let you win or some sort of mental or physical paralysis has set in. Either way, you can’t enjoy victory.

When I wasn’t being reminded that my hand/eye coordination is just as woefully insufficient in 2006 as it was 1991, my brother and I talked about a more recent troubling development: Balding. Specifically, the balding happening to the both of us.

Let me emphasize the “ing” in baldING when I talk about my expanding forehead. I am not bald(no -ing). I am baldING, which implies there’s still more hair than skin on the top of my head.

It’s a tenuous advantage I might not able to maintain. I already keep a bottle of Draino on call to keep my shower from clogging. Plus, I am starting to resemble “Moonlighting” era Bruce Willis. I fear I will soon look like “Die Hard” era Bruce Willis, which means my “Pulp Fiction” era is on the horizon.

I’m not thrilled about this. I’m a man who believes in justice, and since my chest hair appears headed on a slow but steady collision course with my back, I figure I should at least have hair on my head. I mean, if God really exists, that would be the case, right? Right? Hello? Is this thing on?

Maybe it’s time to start reading Nietzsche.

Read the rest as part of Friday's Under 30 column.