I tried shaking my five inches of luscious locks out of my face, only to realize that they wouldn’t move, in fact, the hair wasn’t even there. At first, I panicked, but quickly remembered that last night the annual event had taken place: the summer-cut.

Most guys have experienced it: the immediate feeling of nakedness one feels after a major haircut. Recently I watched the barber hack away my shagged-out wings that had taken me all winter to grow and replace them with the short, clean, preppy cut that not even St. Thomas Academy drill sergeants could find fault with. This is my story.

After the haircut that night, I immediately went home that night to take a shower, and I did what I always do after a drastic haircut: I teased it over and over until it would do nothing more than lie limply (and lamely) on top of my scalp. I tried spiking it, parting it, jumping it, fauxhawking it, poofing it, and I even used shampoo suds to see what I might look like with sideburns and a beard.

I awoke the next morning, and as much as it pains me to say, I gelled it. Well, technically I didn’t gel it, I used this foamy stuff my mom lent to me – it came in a can that was littered in writing that looked like French, with accent marks on almost every word. But that’s beside the point – I hate hair gel, unfortunately I hate my bangs even more. I have to agree with comedian Demetri Marten, who once wisely stated that “hair gel was invented to make it easier to spot [jerks] from a distance.”

Of course, now I sound like a vain, borderline metrosexual who spends all his time in the mirror, but really I’m not. I just honor that one day per year. After all, how often do I get to take it all off? The hair that is.

Griffin Muckley, staff writer