My people.

I realized that my hair was thinning when I was in high school.  It's been a long 14 years.  At first I was worried about it.  I was in high school, which seemed too early for me to lose my hair.

At 20 I got married, tricking my wife into marrying me despite the fact that I would never have luscious hair for her to tousle.  I think that she liked me despite that fact.  Maybe it was my sense of humour.

Why do I bring all this up?  Well, I want to be clear that I am comfortable with the way that I look.  I shave what's left like Mr. Clean and go about my day.  My Grandpa was a great man.  My father is a great man.  No big deal.

Now, on with it.

Recently I was hosting at the camp/retreat centre where I work.  I was at the desk when a woman in her 30's came to the desk to ask for the Internet password.  As I double checked the password from a piece of paper behind the desk the woman decided to give me more information.  She said, "Yeah, someone thought they knew it, so they game me a password.  They said that if it didn't work I should ask you.  They said I should ask the Bald Guy."

Now I want to repeat things.  I can be annoyed about this without being upset about being bald.  The reason I am writing this is not to say that I am a sad little bald teddy bear and I want to crawl into a hole with all of the bald people and die.  No, I have a great life, a great family, and pretty great health as well.

I am writing because what's the deal with people pointing out Bald people all of the time?  I know its a very distinguishable feature, but that alone does not seem valid.  Am I supposed to chuckle at her little quip?  Is she including me in the joke?  Does she want the password or not.

Let me make my point:

"They said I should ask the bald guy."

"They said I should ask the guy with the big nose."

"They said I should ask the fat woman."

"They said I should ask the cripple with the crutches."

"They said I should ask the short girl."

"They said I should ask the chunky girl."

"They said I should ask the guy with really bad acne."

"They said I should ask the Asian."

A distinguishable feature is usually something that you shouldn't point out.  Why on Earth is it okay to distinguish bald people in this way?

Why couldn't I have just been "The guy behind the counter"?  The weekend's guest were all women.  It was a women's retreat!  They could have just said "get the password from the guy" period.

It all reminds me of this.

***Language warning***




If there's one thing you can say is that the bald community is pretty easy going when it comes to all of the hate crimes that we suffer through.  Larry and I both rant not because we are insecure with our baldness.  Rarely will we even bring it up.  We won't ask for special parking spots or tax breaks or anything.  We just find it strange that people are able to be so oblivious in situations where they are clearly carrying out such blatant hate crimes.

Thus is the cross that I carry... not being bald, but having to put up with people pointing it out to me all of the time.