For Thursday, October 21, 1999 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 707 words

Bad hair day

My barber is on vacation. My hair is evidence to the fact. It's sprouting out in all directions like I was licked by camels. It looks like I've been using it to stick balloons on the wall. It's hanging limp like over-stretched phone cords. It looks like the frayed end of a nylon rope that got too close to the flame. My reflection on the ground looks like the head of a nail. From the back my head looks like the only baseball in a small Midwestern town. It looks like a hairball that would frighten Sigfried and Roy. It's hanging like spaghetti al dente. It's a Chia Pet. My bean sprouts are ready. It would embarrass Alfalfa. It would embarrass Buckwheat. It's embarrassing me. I should wear a hat so that no one will know. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Perfectly good pants don't fit me anymore. I've always tossed out old trousers when they shrank or tore or got stained beyond concealment, but now I'm jettisoning finely pressed and preserved clothing into the Goodwill Bag. When I married I was 34. Eight years into it I was 36. Now, 13 years along and I'm 38. I have astigmatism of the abdomen. I have skinny arms and legs and a big gut. My torso looks like an ostrich who swallowed a pumpkin. It looks like a water balloon sitting on a coffee cup. It looks like a garden hose weakened by the sun. I have Adam's Apple of the belly. I would have to send out the army to find my navel. I have a speed bump between me and the beltway. I can only see my shoes in the shade. People ask me, "What trimester?" Store detectives want their pillow back. I'm feeling thick to my stomach.

My stocks are all in the crapper. They're going down like a double-diamond slope. They're dropping like June bugs from a Bug Zapper. They're falling like windows in an earthquake. They're dipping like New England winters, like icicles in spring, like Red Sox Fever. It's a toboggan ride with Ethan Frome. It's like Ahab lashed to Moby Dick, Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, Sylvester Stalone's girlfriend in the opening scene of Cliffhanger, Harold Lloyd in Safety Last, Harrison Ford escaping from Tommy Lee Jones in the Fugitive, Dante into his Inferno, Bobby Vinton into his blue period.

My household chores are getting the best of me. My lawn looks like my hair, only lighter brown. My garage looks like a bad April Fool's joke. My socks are so lonely they're taking out ads. My CD collection looks a co-ed dorm at midnight. I found Jimmy Hoffa hiding in my shoeshine box. My desk drawers look like the work of a disgruntled Office Max employee. My computer disks are scattered across my desk like triple pepperoni. My shirts have more wrinkles than Einstein's cortex. My book shelves look like coins from the I Ching. My bulletin board is alerting me to appointments I missed in 1989. I have 600 dry pens.

My wife is upset with me. She says I must become a self-starter, or she will become a crank. She says the rites didn't right me and the altar didn't alter me. I have gone from ideal to ordeal. She admits I have a certain something, but wishes I had something certain. I can remember her age, but not her birthday. I hold the door when her arms are full of groceries or whenever we have a grease fire. I hold the ladder when she paints. I hold the light when she's changing the oil. I remind her when it's trash night. I call her when the dryer buzzer goes off. I call her when the oven timer goes off. I tell her when the house is too warm or too cold. I don't complain if she forgets to put sugar in my cereal. I don't grumble if she vacuums during Prime Time. I give her back her pillows when she wakes up. I always put her mail back in the envelopes after reading it. I blow dry her toothbrush after using it. I feel bad when I leave the seat up. Yet, she's upset.

Women.

Fred! Come back from vacation.