Gandolph the Gray

True story:  a few months ago I was making visits in a retirement home when an older woman reached out from her walker, grabbed hold of me in the hallway with a palsied hand and said, "You know, that gray hair makes you look soooo sexy and distinguished."

This line, of course, is the only pick-up line women have developed in two million years of human evolution.  Unlike men (who have developed a plethora of pick-up lines) women of every age try to make a man feel sexy by telling him he looks "distinguished."  This is the reason men wear suits and ties (you think we actually want to wear that Italian crap?). It is also the reason men get jobs or drive sports cars or smoke cigars.  Men want women to think they look distinguished and can still drive up the fairway with a three-wood. 

I asked my wife about this while I was trimming the gray hairs out of my nostrils one evening.

"You don't look distinguished," she told me.  "You look disgusting."

I couldn't argue.  Of late I've been looking more like Gandolph the Gray than Mr. Frodo.  It's tough to debunk the point with a woman when flecks of gray turn to salt and pepper, and salt and pepper turns, at last, into snow.  When a man enters full-blown into manopause, he should be thankful that any woman finds him attractive, and if that woman happens to be his wife, he'd better hang onto her like grim death . . . which, by the way, is not far off either!

Still, I'm not sure why men would go in for hair care products like Grecian Formula or Only for Men.  We expect women to dye the gray in their hair.  But for a man to dye his hair . . . this is unsettling.  It's like false advertising.  That, or a man is trying to convince himself that he is still young and distinguished looking.

But listen, guys, let's just stick to disgusting.  It's a whole lot easier.  And it's honest, too.