by Barb Cohea

I was standing in line at a bank, minding my own business, and taking in the local culture when my eyes were drawn to the screaming neon sign of hair loss on the head of the teller I was waiting for. The gentleman had a . . . comb-over. And like most comb-overs it yelled, “Look at me! My hair’s falling out!” I could not take my eyes off of him, or rather his head. Here was a white-shirt and tied-attired fellow, mid-40s, average weight, average height and although no Robert Redford he certainly wasn’t a Frankenstein’s monster either, who felt the compulsion, to do the comb-over. What was he thinking? The very thing he wanted to hide he managed to bring the most attention to—which is the problem with the dreaded comb-over.

I have never understood why men do this, so seeking knowledge I went online and found 144,000 entries alone for comb-over, definition.

It is a noun. No shocker there, I mean “I have a comb-over. You have a comb-over. It has a comb-over.” Noun. It originates in 1980—how they can be sure, I don’t know. The British say they invented the term comb-over claiming, in American English, we say scrape-over. I beg to differ; I have never ever heard scrape-over and personally find it even more repugnant than comb-over. Wily Brits trying to steal our English.

From among thousands saying more or less the same thing the definition is “an attempt by a balding man to conceal baldness by growing the remaining hair longer on one side and combing it over the bald spot to give the illusion of hair.” Let me draw your attention to two words—attempt, and illusion. Do either of these words signify success? That would be, no.

As if the concept of combing longer hair from one side of your head to the other isn’t simple enough, two guys in Florida have patented a technique.

Frank J. Smith and Donald J. Smith (must be related) both of Orlando, Fla., and I suspect suffering from partial baldness, had way too much free time on their hands. After much thought, and obvious experimentation, they received on May 10, 1977 U.S. patent number 4,022,227 for Method For Concealing Partial Baldness. Their method involves 3 equal sections of hair separately draped at different angles over the bald spot and hair-sprayed (aka. glued) into place. They helpfully included instructional drawings of a fake head in various stages of drapery.

Let’s be realistic, a comb-over has no honor, especially if you’ve got 15 hairs trying to do the job of oh, 4,500,000.

A lot of men don’t need hair. A balding man can be quite the sexy devil. I know several women who are married to one—not to the same one, I mean each has her own balding man.

Look at Sean Connery, think he’d ever do a comb-over? And then there’s the wind factor, nothing is less attractive than a comb-over flapping in the breeze. Except perhaps for one that is shellacked in place with the bottom layer stuck to skin. Donald Trump has a comb-over, probably an expensive one; don’t we all make fun of him? Yes, because he looks awful.

All I’m saying is the gene for baldness has survived since the cavemen and if comb-overs had any redeeming social value cavemen would’ve started them. Has anyone ever found cave drawings of the three-section technique? If they flaunted their baldness, so can you.

Cohea, a freelance writer, lives in Beaufort and can be reached at a37_tao@hotmail.com.