For some reason, I really bristle hard when I see ads for products
that are supposed to be a cure or treatment for baldness. I renew with myself
my solemn, adamant, longtime vow that when my hair falls out, I will make
absolutely no attempt to stop it from happening.
I bristle hard the same way when I hear the term “physically
challenged.” It makes me renew my solemn, adamant, longtime vow to never use
that phrase to refer to myself or any other cripple ever. First of all, that phrase
forgets that crippledom is a spectrum. For example, people who are
schizophrenic or bipolar are crippled, too. But nobody calls them “emotionally
challenged “ or anything like that because
it sounds stupid, right? There’s something laughably softball about it. It tries
so hard to downplay that type of crippledness that it sounds ridiculous.
And the reason it downplays crippledness is the same reason anybody downplays crippledness: because we think it’s something to be ashamed of. We can’t just call it what it is.
So maybe that’s why ads for these types of products irk me so. I feel
like those that are peddling them are trying to make us all ashamed to be bald and that pisses me off. How dare they.
It almost makes me want to go bald quick so I can give the finger to
those guys by not buying their shit, in the hope that this pisses them off as much as they piss me
off. Sometimes I feel like shaving my head or yanking out my hair just to hasten
the process, but that would be cheating.
When the day comes that I am
bald, I will be unapologetically, defiantly bald. And I will proudly refer to
myself as bald. I will never let anybody say I’m follicly challenged.
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