hair

I share a bathroom. This is not news. I live in a large house turned many little (well, mine at least) apartments. on my floor, there are three units and 2 banos down the hall for sharing purposes. (background info: the way the banos are situated, 3 units use 1, the apartment on the south side of the building uses the other one almost exclusively). there are many benefits to this: not having to clean the bathroom. ok, so that is the only one i can think of right now. but that counts for like 3 benefits. the down side, is that I have to share it. that in and of it self is not an issue as two bathrooms means rarely, if ever, having to wait for a vacancy. but it does destroy my illusion of living alone. and by destroy i mean obliterate. but only on occasion, like a land mine or a natural disaster. like the time my green wash cloth went missing. MISSING! I would leave it hanging in the bathroom for my personal use and one day it was gone. there are no other towels in there save for the drab dark green washcloth that has been there since hand towels inception, looks like. i left a kind, non passive aggressive note – more difficult than it seems! - and my washcloth was returned within 24hours. but with no explanation. no, 'oops, sorry I thought it was communal' or 'i dropped it so thought i'd wash it before returning it.' (to which i would have replied, 'oops, i thought your stomach was a target for my pointy, fast moving fist, you boundary-less freeloading user of shared bathroom!' or 'thank you, that's very sweet. can you turn your music down?' respectively.) needless to say, I was shaken by the unauthorized abduction and the subsequent return of my little green hand towel; my trust, it has been tarnished.

But the experience did nothing to prepare me for the epic hair saga that was to follow. Allow me to explain. on occasion, I would enter the bathroom at some undisclosed time after a certain someone had cut their hair. I am not opposed to haircutting, unless you are slovenly about it: short, coarse hairs clung to the now greasy with finger prints mirror, the empty towel rack resembled some kind of cyborg caterpillar, and the floor, oh the floor! it's like I walked into the beauty parlor set of some community theater mounting of steel magnolias! hair everywhere! tho, for realism sake, due to the drab color of the rug and the hardwood floors, the left behind follicles were only really noticeable tho upon closer inspection, sad to say, which is partially why it went over looked in the first place. still, not good enough excuse for whichever of the two out of three neighbors I had it narrowed down to as being the culprit.

speaking of culprits, the suspects really confounded me. I couldn't figure out who it was. one minute I was convinced it was inherently messy due to dude gene man next door or squirrelly hard to pin down but real nice when you do woman in the other next door to me. both had the same color hair. both were equally unapproachable for differing reasons, both were not me who has always been diligent with post hair cut clean up. and who in their right mind cuts their hair so much? almost as disturbing as the evidence of a sheering, was noting the frequency of it. last I had seen, both possible offenders still had a head of hair. there were no severe hair cuts or bald spots to account for it. I was baffled. and then I put the ordeal behind me and ran for more sacred ground. ie I started using the other bathroom exclusively.

days passed.

possibly weeks.

the problem persisted, to a lesser degree (partially due to my posting of a non passive aggressive note about cleaning up after hair cuts. or shaving as it turned out to be – I ran into man neighbor at On the Boards and he fessed up, generously appreciative of my self appointed neighborhood grime watch duties) (yes, I said grime watch) (but the longer hairs on the floor continued), as I noticed on my occasional 'hard to break a habit' trip to the multi multi use bathroom. and it was on one of these occasions that I had a sudden realization. mystery neighbor wasn't cutting their hair on an almost daily basis, they were losing it. dude neighbor is in his early 30's by my rough estimate. he didn't turn our bathroom into barbershop. he was balding. suddenly, the world made a little more sense. and this dense weave of a bathroom drama suddenly fell away in the face of simple biology. still, thought the neat freak as she wiped her feet after visiting the restroom she had all but given hope on, he could at least age responsibly.