My first hint that something was wrong came with an elbow to the ribs.
"What time are you supposed to be there?"
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and mumbled, "Nine o'clock."
"It's 8:30."
"Oh, crap."
I rolled out of bed, my brain coughing and sputtering into what could pass for full operating mode. That's not usually an instant thing for me. I wake up slowly. Most days, it takes me 15 minutes before my brain is ready to do anything more than support vital functions, and even then there is an internal debate over whether breathing is indeed more "vital" than another five minutes of sleep.
But a crisis is a crisis, and when you have a meeting at 9 AM and your feet hit the floor at 8:30, adrenaline gives all systems a kickstart.
Well, most systems. Adrenaline isn't much help with finding keys or complex decisions like "Do I have enough time for breakfast?" (Correct answer? "It's already 8:36, you moron. Move!"). But I was able to remember that I'd had a shower the night before, so all that was required was to grab some clothes (Q: "Black shirt or burgundy?" A: "8:39! Which one is in your hand? Go!"), and hit the road.
I was in my car and pulling out of the driveway by 8:40, and with some pretty skilful and possibly illegal driving I pulled up to the meeting at 9:03. Not on time, but not so late as to be considered rude. I burst into the room, trying to gather my composure, when I saw my friend Melissa.
She giggled when she saw me. "Windy out today?"
"Huh?"
"Oh, nothing. I just didn't realize how breezy it was."
I was baffled. Melissa pointed to a mirror on the wall. I looked at myself.
Oh, dear Lord. Worst case of bed head ever.
And that is saying something. I know there are people out there with huge, full, luxuriant heads of hair, and I bet some mornings you folks get up and look in the mirror and wonder who snuck up in the middle of the night with the Mix-master. And believe me, I have sympathy for you, with all those bits and pieces of your hair sticking up.
Well, sympathy to a point.
See, I do not have a huge, full, luxuriant head of hair. I am, in fact, blessed with what is known as "Male Pattern Baldness". In the space on the driver's license for "Hair Colour", mine says "Transparent".
Male Pattern Baldness means I am not completely follicle-free. There is nothing much on top, but I do have some hair along the sides and at the back. Operative term: some. Not much.
So, when I get bed head, it's not bits and pieces, not a few tufts here and there. It's the whole shebang. When I looked in the mirror, every single available hair on my head was reaching out to the world. Two giant wings on either side of my melon.
I was Crusty the Clown. All that was missing was the whiteface, the red nose, and the big shoes. Mortified, I tried pressing my hair flat with my hand. Those of you who actually have hair know that this can't be done. It sprung defiantly back into place.
"Nice hair," said my buddy Jeff. "I didn't hear the circus was in town. How many of you guys fit into one of those little cars, anyway?"
I was being teased about my hair. That hasn't happened to me since the 1970s.
Hey, I'm used to being teased about being bald. If you want to make fun of me being bald, you can fill your boots. It's dangerous business, because I have heard pretty much any bald joke you care to tell. You can't put a dent in me, but you have nothing in your experience to prepare you for the comebacks I have spent the last thirty years honing to a razor-sharp edge. Tease me about being bald, I will cut you and leave you bleeding.
But this? I had nothing. All I could do was splutter. And my friends at the meeting, who had spent years putting up with merciless teasing from me and had never ever seen me at a loss for words, found this all just hysterical. They piled on, one after the other.
I laughed right along with them. Hey, I live by the sword. If I can't take ribbing from good friends, it doesn't say much for me.
And in the end, I won. I mean, sure, I took a drubbing from my friends. But really: I had a bad hair day. First one since 1974.
Hey, life is all about the small victories. Even the ones that feel like a loss.
Nils Ling's book "Truths and Half Truths" is a collection of some of his most memorable and hilarious columns. Send a cheque or money order for $25.00 (taxes, postage and handling included) to RR #9, 747 Brackley Point Road, Charlottetown, PE, C1E 1Z3
