Welcome Back Mr. Kotter

My wife is turning me into a hippie, and this is my cry for help.

It all started last November, when she made a rather bold announcement. “I’m no longer cutting your hair…” she boasted, then paused for dramatic effect. And with a look of derisive self-assurance, she concluded her thought, “…until I get good and ready.” She went on to explain that she was fed up with the same old haircut that I’ve been sporting for the past 11 years. Technically, I’ve had this ‘do since the Reagan years, but I didn’t feel that was a correction worth making at the time. Instead, I retreated into the deep recesses of my mind, in a little place I call my ‘inner war room’, where I began devising a strategy with which to combat this new evil that had just befallen me.

Now I know what you’re thinking. I could just go out and pay a professional to do the job for me. But my shrewd wife knows that I’m too stubborn to fold so easily. (Not to mention cheap.) No sir, this is a battle of wills – mine against hers. And while she’s out to convert me into one of those Hollywood pretty boys with their flowing hair and their manicured nails, I’m playing my hand in typical passive aggressive fashion as I grab the reigns of this hair-growth stagecoach and steer it into the bowels of the forgotten era of the 1970s. If it’s hair she wants, then by God I’ll give it to her… in spades. I’ll make her eat her words and loath the day she suggested a new ‘do for me. I’ll dig up the styles of the Disco days and prove to her that short hair is where it's at.

If you haven’t already guessed, hair is my Achilles’ heel, much as it was for Samson. Only, his deal was that his could never be cut. Mine, on the other hand, has to be trimmed religiously every other week, like a well manicured lawn. When Samson’s hair was finally hacked off, he became physically weak and was thrown into prison. When my hair goes untrimmed, my contagiously sunny disposition becomes eclipsed by a sadness that cannot be expressed in words, while those who've come to depend on my humor are imprisoned in the truest sense of the word. Ultimately, it was a woman who undid poor Samson, and now there's one nipping at my heels.

I am 64 days into ‘battle hair’, and while the urge to throw in the towel and solicit the help of a barber is stronger than when my journey began, I’m confident that I can morph my mane into the great white afro of Gabe Kaplan, if I can just stay the course.

Yet, like Rome, the ‘Mr. Kotter look’ can’t be built in a day. These things take time. That’s why my plan includes a 5 phase implementation process. Stage 1 – the Einstein: not much explanation needed here – long hair with no place in particular to go. Stage 2 - the Patrick Swayze: a little less harried with a distinct wave now noticeable (see also ‘the Danny Bonaduce’). Stage 3 – the Billy Ray Cyrus: also known as ‘the mullet’, ‘hockey hair’ and ‘business up front and a party in the back’. Stage 4 – the Willie Nelson: braiding is now necessary to avoid looking like that goof ball tenor from the Oak Ridge Boys. Stage 5 – the Gabe Kaplan (we also would have accepted ‘the Epstein’): to perfect this look, I’ll rely on lots of hairspray and a ‘fro pick. When I’m done, I’ll be oozing with sex appeal.

Of course, this plan of mine just might backfire. I could actually start a new retro-hair fad, and then we'd all be in trouble.