I walked in the door as proud as I could be. I took one look at my mother and then she started crying.  “What have you done,” she said angrily. 

“Your senior dinner is tomorrow and you look terrible,” she continued with more tears and just as angry. 

“I want to look good,” I replied.

“Well you don’t,” she said.

This was one of the first times that I learned that hair does make a difference. It was also, according to my mother, the last time she cried over little things.

When I left home that morning I had a full head of bryle cream hair that was picture perfect. The motto bryle cream a little dab will do you meant nothing to me. I used enough to make sure that my hair would withstand a fifty knot wind. When I came home that night it was all gone. 

I had what they called a brush cut for a long time. I wanted to look like a Marine even before I signed up.   So there I stood brush cut and a mother sobbing because I did it. 

My hair has always been good for many laughs in the family. My siblings watched for years as I was gong bald and combed over a few strands of hair to make it look like my entire head was covered. They thought it was funny when I did and even now when they talk about hair, mine is the first head that comes to mind. 

Over the last ten years or so I have been satisfied with the hair I can grow. To me it is a crown of excellence. I keep telling myself that God made a few perfect heads and then put hair on all the rest. I have a T-shirt that says that. 

The only problem with letting my crown of hair grow for a couple of months before I cut it, is that more often than not it was hard to control. To deal with that my wife promoted the use of hair conditioner. 

She had a tough battle getting me to use anything on my hair; especially a product I consider is just for women. She really wanted me to use the combination of shampoo and conditioner. But, I washed my hair by running whatever soap I was using through it and that was it. 

Last year I decided that I wanted to do away with the massive amount of time it took to keep my hair looking good so I just cut it all off every couple of months. 

There are a countless number of men who spend time trying to deal with their hair as they are losing it or trying to keep what hair they have. The one thing about a man’s hair is that it doesn’t change his looks that much whether he has a full head of hair or none at all. This is generally true until a man wears a wig or a man’s hairpieces. The problem with men wearing either is that most of the time it is noticeable.  

Women have thousands of products to choose from to deal with their hair. At first glance it seems like women’s products far outnumber men’s products. When I searched the Web just the opposite was true.  When I searched for “women’s hair care products” it came up with 157,000 responses when I did the same search for men’s hair care products it came up with 257,000 responses.

When I checked my medicine cabinet just the opposite was true. My wife has more products than I would ever even consider using. 

Most women spend a lot more time and money on making their hair look like they want it to. The results are generally always worth the effort.When a women says she wants to look like a new person a new hair do is one way of achieving it. 

I can’t tell you the number of times I have been introduced to a woman for the second or third time because each time I was introduced she had a different hairstyle or color and I honestly didn’t notice who it was. 

They have products to take care of dry hair, damaged hair, oily hair, frizzy hair, thick hair, thin hair and most importantly in this day and age to color hair. They also sell  many types of clippers, curlers, irons and dryers they use on their hair. 

They have shampoos, conditioners, cleansers, styling gels, controlling gels, sculpting gels and  products to shape their hair. They undoubtedly have many more problems or conditions that they sell products for, but you can get my point. 

Women have complete assortments of wigs and hair extensions the long and short of it is that a woman can do a lot more with her hair than a man would even think of doing. No wonder some of us don’t even recognize our wife when she comes home from the beauty shop.

The only thing worse than not recognizing her when she comes home from the beauty shop is to not knowing she went there and then not noticing that she had her hair done. It’s gotten to the point that every time I look at my wife I say, “You look different, what did you do?” That way I’m protected no matter what she has done. 

What’s really good about this approach is that even if she didn’t do anything, she feels good because she thinks she looks different. Of course if she reads this I will have to find a new approach. 

When I come home from the beauty shop or barbershop depending on where I go two things I know for sure. My wife will recognize me and no matter how much I paid it was too much. One time I asked a barber for a discount because I had so little hair. His response was well rehearsed, “You are really paying a finders fee for the hair to be cut.” 

Well, because God gave me a perfect head I have just written over a thousand words about something I have less of and takes up more of my time than anything else. At least I no longer have bad hair days.

Maurice Emery is the Editor Emeritus of The Littleton Observer. In addition to regular news coverage for the paper, he also writes a weekly column.