O’hair

I was just out for a night jog in my dark neighborhood, pumping loud tunes through my head phones, and focusing on  some new dumb scary idea, when I thought I felt movement next to me.  Not expecting to actually see anything, I casually glanced to my left, and spotted a big ass dog charging after me! In reality, he was probably happily running along with me, but hey, how am I supposed to know what trickery this dumb dog had in store?  I panicked, squealed “OH SHIT!!!” really loud, turned on the boosters, and hauled ass as fast as I could from that evil creation.

A couple feet down the road I glanced behind me and noticed that the dog was still back where I had began my frantic sprint. Hanging out, trotting along. He just wasn’t all that interested, it seems.

I look goofy enough when I run normally.  But running scared?  Man oh man.  I hope no one was out there to see that.

Anyway, the other weekend I flew out to Chicago to attend Lollapalooza in Grant Park.  Had a helluva good time, and got to see some amazing bands while drinking a whole bunch of $9 24oz cans of warm crappy Miller Light in the company of thousands of hipster youngsters.  Now, I’d like to blatantly copy jakelicious‘s review of the Coachella Festival and give a well-crafted run-down of the many noteworthy bands from the weekend, but unfortunately I have something a bit more pressing to talk about right now. Me. And Hair.

I’m a hairy dude.  You may have noticed.  And, if so, you have probably pointed it out to me.  Recently.  Like so many others have been inspired to do over the past couple months…

So yeah, after a long day at the festival, our group headed over to a pizza joint/brew pub named “Peace” that had an extraordinary IPA on tap.  While I waxed pretentiously about my delicious beer discovery, my buddy Sandman decided to strike up a round of “Questions.”  Questions is a simple game where you approach a group of random girls and politely ask them to point out which person within your group is the ugliest.  Or which member of the group they would choose to die, if you’re feeling especially obnoxious.  Sandman chose to go the “ugly” route.  The waitress politely refused to answer.  So Sandman tried it again at the next bar.  Walked up to a group of women sitting at a pub table and said, “Excuse me ladies, could you please tell us who is the ugliest in this group,” gesturing towards himself and his buddies.  I leaned in and added, “And please tell us the reasons for your decision.”

Without hesitation, the one in the middle pointed to me.  “You’re the ugliest.”

Ouch.

Well, here goes nothing…

“And… why?”

“Because you’re too hairy.”

And that was that.

Me.

The Ugliest.

The hairy freak.

…

I’M A MONSTER!!!!!

Normally I’d shrug it off, assume we just happened to interrupt a group of girls who really dig swimmers.  But no, this wasn’t the first time this had happened.  Not the first time I’d been called out for my gorilla suit.  No, this has been happening a lot lately.

A few weeks earlier my little brother and I were standing outside a coffee shop in Decatur.   A random girl walked over to us and struck up a conversation.  My brother and I proceeded to reply to her questions with an array of bizarre answers, and through it all she remained nonplussed.  She didn’t even seemed to be listening, really.  But rather was focused on something else entirely.  My forearms.

“You’re very hairy,” she said.

I turned to my brother and gasped, “Again!  Again with the hair!”

“I mean, it’s not bad,” she said.   “It’s not bad.   It’s just… well… “  and then she reached over and petted my hairy monster hand.

She petted me!

My brother lit up.  He said,  “You know that Bones used to be really insecure about his hair when he was younger.  He used to come home from school and shave his entire body, only to wake up in the morning to discover that twice as much had grown back!”

She turned to look at me.

This story wasn’t true, but it was funny, so I didn’t deny it.   I then decided to enlighten her with a true tale of how I was, in fact, rather insecure as a youngster going through puberty and having hairier arms than everyone else.  But then one day my classmates and I had to watch a film strip in sex ed that discussed puberty, and the narrator explained that “Just because you may have more hair on your body than your friends, it doesn’t mean that you’re more manly than them…”

Hmm…  Wait a minute…  If they felt the need to bring this up, then there must be some truth to it….  Yeah…   Yeah!  Of course!  It was all coming together.  I was a man.  Not like these slick slimy dolphin-skinned bastards around me! I was a real MAN, baby!

But now, it seems, I am but a monster.

This has been happening a lot lately.  Girls commenting on the reservoir of hair that collects on the bottom of my forearms and flows like a river down to the back of my hand.   Yeah, I never fully evolved, I’ll quip.  Well at least you won’t get cold in the winter, they might say.  I don’t believe in weather, I’ll likely respond.  They’ll then turn around to talk to someone else.

Around this same period of time, I was sitting at the bar at the Brickstore.  A couple seats down were a couple of extremely drunk fellows, barking rude comments at the girl behind the bar, a juvenile attempt at flirtation, to be sure.   They then began to mumble to themselves, and I thought I heard them say “Teen Wolf.”

And I was sure that they must be referring to me.

It’s happening a lot these days, I tell you.

So there I stood in this bar in downtown Chicago, my lyncathrope arms lifting my gorilla hands up to pour a glass of beer into my monkey mouth, and wondering if… well… if maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to decide to grow a beard last week.

Ah well, why miss it by a few inches, one might say.   Might not work with the girls, but hey, as my little run-in with the canine tonight has revealed,  my new look seems to be quite popular with the other mammals.

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vicks.  His hair was perfect.