Attribution: Mostafameraji, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, having adjusted long ago to his hairless condition, notes that both the keeper and Phyllis lucked out in the hair department, the keeper having dodged genes from his bald father that brother Orv picked up. Phyllis is equally fortunate with her lush graceful gray cowlick.
But the human body’s evolutionary insistence in covering itself with a protective coat of “fur” goes beyond what grows on the scalp and is the reason the keeper shaves his face every morning and Phyllis uses various means to keep hair from growing where she doesn’t want it.
Having no effective means of eliminating hair growth, the human race has embraced it with creative hairdos and facial beards, many of which are obvious attempts to say something symbolic to the viewing world, like “look at what I have done with my hair to make you think I am special!”
The question puts a whole new depth to the keeper’s history of having lived most of his adult life with a mustache. Why? What is he using this hair growth under his nose and just over his mouth to say to those who must look at him?
Previous attempts to deeply probe the issue have not been satisfactory and the keeper now simply accepts himself with a mustache and keeps it trimmed enough so it doesn’t hang down in his soup bowl.
He and Phyllis would be interested in hearing from others about their “hairy” issues. We’re all in this together, resisting in a thousand ways the verity that we are really not basically unlike our many furry friends.
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