Baldee, the Imposter

The nicest thing about being bald is you don't need to shower for days.  Why is that nice?  I like taking showers.  If you go camping where there are no showers -- like a 10-day canoe trip into Algonquin Park -- your hair doesn't feel greasy, scraggly and in need of a wash.  If you don't want to, you don't need to dip your head in the cold lake waters with the rest of you. 

I'm not bald, but I have been, and could be again.  So could you.

Another nice thing is a couple days after the initial shave, the nubs feel nice.  Some other people like the feel of them, so the baldee gets a double benefit.

It's an experience worth experiencing.  Until I shaved my head, I didn't realize what a good insulator hair is. A bald head feels the warmth of an overhead light.  It also fails to soften the sting of a low ceiling above a basement stairway. Wait-staff might give you special attention.  When that happened, I felt like an imposter.

On a training run through Roanoke, the window of a passing van rolled down and out came a ballcap. "Try this on, baldee," yelled my benefactor.  I couldn't tell if he was teasing me or concerned about the beating sun.  Someone must have paid good money for that cap at a Hard Rock Cafe.  That was the second time.  The first time I ran a few track laps with a bald stranger in Salisbury.  Before he left, he ran to his car and tossed me a cap that matched his own.  "We bald guys need to stick together," he said.

Again, I felt like an imposter, which for me is not unusual.  Here I am, supposedly a banking expert, and I haven't been in the bowels of a bank in nearly 20 years.  Or a violinist.  My fiddle has been resting in the corner since our May Day concert.

"Me, too," says Virginia.  "I'm supposed to be developing character, and nothing much has happened in months."

She's right.