Breaking bald: Funny, he writes like he has hair

By SCOTT SAALMAN

Scaramouch

I was alone, eating a fish sandwich at Arby’s, when I heard a reverend delivering some sort of moment of reflection via local radio. His subject matter: phobias. He listed a litany of fears: heights, enclosed spaces, flying, snakes. Things I’ve heard a hundred times before. But then I heard him add a new one to the list, “The fear of bald people,” causing me to nearly choke on my fish fillet.

The fear of —

What?!!

Did I hear correctly?

Did he say “bad” people?

Or bald people?

Is it possible there are people who fear me by virtue of my baldness? Is this why I am eating lunch alone? Because I scare others?

I did a Google search. Sure enough, there appeared entries for peladophobia or “the fear of bald people.” Symptoms include shortness of breath, sweating, heart palpitations, shaking. And here I thought my former girlfriends really liked me when they demonstrated these symptoms. I had no idea they were having panic attacks. It all makes sense now. Their fear of my baldness caused them to resort to the good old head-under-hatchet-breakup-line, the most overused relationship-killing cliché in history: “It’s not you. It’s me.” Translation: “You are bald.”

Thanks to Google, I also learned ways to cure peladophobia and, perhaps, save a relationship. For example: behavior therapy, anti-anxiety medicine, psychotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, all of which, as a single guy, I used to formulate into pick-up lines. “Hi, my name is Scott. Yes, I’m bald. And yes, you are trembling at the mere sight of me, and sweating so much that right now I am no longer even attracted to you, but I just want you to know that after you go through several dozen sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy (my treat) you might be able to one day, dare I say it, peek through the cracks of the fingers of the hand covering your eyes and see my horrific hairless scalp without experiencing the heebie-jeebies.”

Is it not enough of a problem that I am bald? Suddenly, I found myself on the same phobia list with spiders, snakes, cockroaches, toads, bacteria, hell, mothers-in-law, plane crashes, clowns, folk art, and radio reverends.

My mother had wigs when I was a kid. She had plenty of hair of her own, but it was the ’70s. For the husbands, it was sort of like wife swapping, only without a moral dilemma. My brother and I had fun trying on her wigs. We didn’t get all Anthony Perkins weird as we got older, in case you’re wondering. Well, I can only speak for myself. I now wonder if all that sliding on and off those itchy wigs jump-started my follicle erosion. Talk about cruel irony.

Upon learning about peladophobia, I decided that there must be a phobia for everything. I Googled “fear of hair.” Entries for chaetophobia appeared. It made me giddy knowing there are people who fear people WITH HAIR!

If not for the photo that the Reporter runs with my column, you might not have even known I was bald. In the past, papers didn’t include my photo. They didn’t want to risk experiencing a dip in circulation dollars. Eventually, though, my photo began to appear, causing me to imagine a typical kitchen table conversation going something like this:

Husband (throwing paper to floor): My God, Scott Saalman is bald!

Wife: What?

Husband: Bald as a baboon’s butt.

Wife: Shut the front door!

Husband: Look at his picture!

Wife: Oh, it’s just Photoshopped. He’s just being funny. He’s not really bald. I mean, he writes like he has hair.

Husband (experiencing shortness of breath, sweating, heart palpitations, shaking): People don’t use Photoshop to make themselves look bald! They do it to give themselves hair! I refuse to read Scott’s column anymore.

Wife: Poor dear. It’s so hard watching you struggle with your peladophobia.

OK. I’m depressed now. I wish I still had access to that wig of Mom’s from the 1970s. So what if I look like Carol Brady when I put it on. Knowing the role mom’s wigs likely played in beginning my baldness, though, I’m sort of scared of them. See maliaphobia.

Contact: scottsaalman@gmail.com