PETS

     My cat will never go bald. That’s a good bet and he knows it. I’m certain he knows it. I can tell by the way he watches me suffer the bathroom mirror in the morning. I see him grinning. It’s ugly. He gets his thin, lousy little lips up under his whiskers; he takes them ear to ear, fangs sticking out. You’ve seen it.
     But he’s smart; he won’t let on more than the grin. That’s a cat - smug. He sits in the corner of the bathroom, grinning, while I check the recession taking place up on my head. What am I suppose to do about this kind of behavior? Moral insubordination! I’ll tell you what; I back up on him, step on his tail a little, catch the paws underfoot - just a scrunch, no harm intended - just a reminder about who’s taller around here.
     My bird is in on it too, feathers top to bottom. Feathers and cat hair all over the place, they know what they’re doing.
     And Max the dog will go bald the day he learns how to tango and smoke cigars. They’re all in it together. Ham and Cheese, the lizards. What about them? Two princes. I’ve had them since I was twelve - good luck there! No hair there to lose in the first place, just more smug animals. And what about the fish? They giggle air balls all night long over my hairline. I hear them.
     It’s some zoo over here. But what do they know about pain, suffering and hair loss? I sit here and wonder.
     They’re looking at me now, all of them. They know what I’m thinking. Shave the cat and dog just a bit, pluck a few feathers, glue a little hairline on the reptiles, flush the fish. Even the score a bit.
     Am I alone in this jungle?

What You Can't Be...

     When you're young very little thought is spent over dignity (unless you're born a nervous wreck which is sad because there is nothing more undignified than a sniveling, little nervous wreck), and you live those glory days kicking piles of rules into the wind, all the while believing with certainty that the rules don't apply to you. No they don't, and they never will. No they won't.
     And then one day you find yourself married, and your knees hurt when you run, and your son... my goodness! Where did he come from? ... is ready for a bicycle, and suddenly, it hits you;
     The "Two out of Three" rule:
It's hard to maintain your dignity when you begin to find yourself getting old, fat, and bald. Here it is:
You can be old and fat but have hair,
You can be old and bald but not fat,
You can be young and fat and bald, and although it's not a style that promotes a secure disposition, you're still young and really that's all that matters.
     Oh, sure, they'll tell you that old fat and bald is fine, "FINE! - Ha ha! How you feel is what counts..." Sure! Sure," they say...
     I'm a size 32 jeans. I grew into size 33 and nearly had a stroke. You can't call it fat, not yet, not ever, cause I got my old, bald backside into the park and ran myself back into 32. Yes I did. "Two out of Three" I can control that. I got one I can control. Yes I do; no matter how much sniveling there is, was and will be.

Baldie Bistro

This story will be available in "Baldie Stories 1", through Kindle.

Baldie welcome!

     Welcome to Baldie Stories blog, a new venue for an ongoing effort to promote the fairly humorous, occasionally tragic, and mostly honest stories, essays, and notes written by one man tired of cringing into middle-age, going bald, and keeping the dust off of dreams that still seem to make sense for no very good reason at all.
     Some of the entries will be from a collection of short stories, titled "Baldies", a collection written just yesterday - or the year before a couple of years ago - from which some stories were deemed suitable for local publication in a small NYC free-press magazine, and others that I still look forward to publishing.

Thanks for your attention,
Baldie 1