Rape of the Lock

—At long last, after 2-3 months of COVID-19, my overly hirsute locks are shorn.
A giant heap of white whiskers adorned my hairdresser’s worktable. I shoulda taken a picture.
No longer will one of my lady-friends be able to weave corn-braids into my hair.
And thankfully, per my hairdresser, she hadn’t attacked me with her dog-grooming clippers.
“I’ve trimmed so many messes,” he noted.
With me a haircut is every five weeks, and that includes a trim of facial hair.
I was wearing a mask at first. He wasn’t, but “I don’t wanna spray my kooties all over you,” I said.
“You’ll hafta remove that mask if you want me to trim your beard,” he remarked.
“That’s the worst part,” I commented.
So now, at long last, I’m no longer Santy-Claus. “Ho-ho-ho. Merry Christmas!
Nor am I the “Abominable-Snowman,” nor the “Wild-Man-of-Borneo.”
“Your hair is long,” my hairdresser observed.
“Yeah,” I said; “over my ears and all white.”
Years ago I let it go uncut for a while, but decided in favor of a haircut. And back then it was still brown, but too unkempt.
I also switched to a beard years ago to avoid shaving, which bloodied my sink.
But no Moses-beard for This Kid. COVID-19 tempted me to shave it off, but it looks okay short. And shaving seems less blood-prone than 40 years ago.
As far as I know that gigantic whisker-pile didn’t clog his toilet.

• “The Rape of the Lock” was a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope in the early 1700s. It had to do with the unpermitted cutting off of a damsel’s hair-lock, which caused a rift among upper-class English families.
• That lady-friend is co-owner of a nearby kennel where I daycare my dog.