Follicle Farming Very Tough In Fallow Field

For some mysterious reason, any baldness remedies that arrive at the newspaper are quickly forwarded to my desk.

I can’t figure out the connection, but… Wait a minute. I just saw my column photograph.

My gawd, call the cops. Somebody stole my haaaiiiir!!!

Let me confess something you may not have noticed. I’m a follicly challenged guy.

Or as my friends lovingly say: “Put a hat on, baldo. The glare’s hurting our eyes!”

Well, no more shots across the brow for this baldo. Thanks to a miracle of modern merchandising, I soon may have more mane than Mister Ed.

I am testing an amazing new treatment called - don’t laugh - Hair Farming.

I heard about Hair Farming through a press release mailed to the newspaper from a New York public relations firm. Here’s the part that got my pulse a-pounding: After just 20 minutes of Hair Farming, the release states, “you will see hair that was not previously visible.”

The only uncomfortable thing about Hair Farming is training a herd of tiny cows to fertilize your forehead without dribbling in your eyes.

Ha, ha. Just kidding. You’ll be glad to hear that Hair Farming doesn’t involve livestock, tractors or toothless hicks named Jeb who wear bib overalls and splat tobacco on your head.

Hair Farming is a simple process that consists of several secret ointments and easy-to-follow directions. It’s also expensive. A sixmonth supply of Hair Farming products runs $859.95. The brochure says the average program costs between $1,000 and $2,000.

“We have the answer to (male) pattern baldness,” boasts Jacqueline Sable, the Pompano, Fla., woman who invented what she calls “a product that can end hair loss in the human race.”

Sable’s theory, if I may paraphrase, is that we chrome domes are the way we are because pour hair follicles are stopped up like clogged kitchen drains.

Her Hair Farming elixirs promise to unplug the tiny openings like Drano in the sink. Suddenly - “SPROING!” - hairs that haven’t seen daylight since the Nixon administration are sprouting up like Jack’s beanstalk.

“Thick coarse hairs, not peach fuzz,” promises Sable, who talks about one subject who actually sproinged out a 10-inch hair after a session.

The last 10-inch hair I found was in my burrito at a cheap cafe.

Sable sent me a Hair Farming starter kit free so I could check it out for journalistic purposes.

On Friday I took it to the auto shop where I get my head buffed. Actually, Gary Swift at Hair’s Image in the Paulsen Building graciously agreed to apply the liquids while Sable talked him through it over the telephone.

Getting Hair Farmed is a slippery, but not unpleasant process that took about an hour.

“I don’t see any difference,” said Swift, who squinted at my head as carefully as an astronomer scanning the heavens for signs of alien life.

Sable claims Swift didn’t find any new growth because he didn’t know what to look for. “I told him to call me back,” she adds angrily in a later conversation.

I dunno, Jackie, a new 10-incher would be hard for even Ray Charles to miss. Besides, Swift has cut my hair for years. He knows every pathetic barren patch.

I’ll give Sable credit for persistence. She wants me to keep on Hair Farming and checking the mirror for success.

“By Monday you’ll have lots of new” hair, she says. “This is for real. It’s my pride that’s on the line here.”

I hope I do turn into a human chia pet. (Keep checking my column photo for signs of progress.)

But even if I end up a failed farmer I’ll come out on top. I can always get Willie Nelson to stage a Hair Aid benefit concert for me.

Or maybe I’ll apply for some of those federal agricultural subsidies you always hear people grousing about. Wouldn’t that be baldo heaven - getting paid to NOT grow hair.