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Me, Need Propecia? A Baldfaced Lie

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A couple of days ago, a woman I know asked, “What do you think about Propecia?”

I didn’t answer right away, because it is better to stay silent and appear to be stupid than to speak up and prove it.

“Propecia?” I replied.

I waited for a clue. I had no idea if Propecia was: (a) A gulf near Iraq that’s responsible for us paying $1.50 a gallon; (b) A close personal friend of Xena, the Warrior Princess; (c) A dog food that keeps pets healthy and slim, particularly if they refuse to eat it, or (d) A band that just sold a million copies of its new CD, “If You Have to Listen to This, Please Roll Up Your Car Window So Nobody Else Has To.”

Propecia, Propecia . . . ?

“You know,” she said. “The baldness pill.”

A pill?

Looking at me as if I didn’t know that chickens came from eggs and rude waiters from France, the woman wondered how I could be unaware of Propecia. I apologized by telling her I’m usually the last to know everything. (I didn’t even hear about Simon and Garfunkel splitting up until 1997.)

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“Not that you need Propecia,” she added.

Uh huh.

*

I began to lose my hair at around age 30. I forget where I lost it exactly; maybe somewhere around Pittsburgh.

Before then, I’d had a thick mop of brown curls, which I brushed straight forward into bangs, in a vain--every definition of the word--attempt to appear young and hip. I can’t say what look I was shooting for, exactly. Just sort of an Anglo Afro.

Having grown up in an era of Wildroot and Brylcreem, I studiously avoided all creams, jams, jellies and oils. No little dab was going to do me. I remember a product called Dippity-Do that looked like something you should spread on a Ritz cracker. No matter how much this dippity was supposed to do for your hair, I never did look good in goo.

But then it began to fall out.

I didn’t notice at first. I didn’t even take a hint when one Christmas a friend gave me a bottle of Head & Shoulders shampoo, but crossed out every word on the label but “Shoulders.”

Barbershops, where I once lingered in the chair for a half-hour, an hour, maybe more, eventually became in-’n’-out joints. My guy might as well have put in a drive-thru window. I used to sit there reading an entire issue of National Geographic. Now I’m done with the haircut before I’m done with the table of contents.

Here’s how it goes nowadays:

“How much do you want off?”

“Oh, just a trim.”

“How’ve you been doing lately?”

“Fine. You?”

“OK, you’re done. That’ll be $12.”

There are advantages to going bald. I never need to pack a blow-dryer on a trip. (As opposed to some people I know, who spend more time with a dryer in their hand than Wyatt Earp did with a gun.) Furthermore, I never have to keep looking in my car’s rearview mirror. I’ve had drivers in front of me at stoplights who were so busy primping, the light turned from red to green three times.

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Nevertheless, I was always curious what I would do if a miracle hair cure came along.

A man is often told it doesn’t matter.

Trust me, it matters. Groucho Marx was once in a restaurant where it was necessary to wear a necktie. “Look at that guy over there,” Groucho said, pointing. “You won’t let me in without a tie, but you let him in without his hair.”

There have been a number of options over the years. Wigs. Weaves. Plugs.

I would never wear a rug. For one thing, I’d always feel like I was walking around with a Davy Crockett raccoon cap on my head. For another, I don’t think you should glue things to your body. I don’t want anything sticking to me except a Band-Aid or a wad of gum I’ve stepped on with my shoe.

Besides, wig wearers are so secretive. On the day Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded in 1587, the executioner picked up Mary’s head to show the crowd . . . and her wig fell off.

She, too, learned the difference that day between Head & Shoulders.

*

Anyway, I hear that Propecia hasn’t been selling so well.

According to a published report, the makers of the “baldness pill”--which is to be swallowed once a day, at a cost of roughly $50 a month--spent something like $91 million to publicize Propecia in this country, but U.S. sales last year were only around $68 million.

I figured it would go over big. Rogaine needs to be rubbed into your scalp. Plugs need to be . . . well, plugged. But to pop a pill and grow hair? Hey, sounds easy. I’d like to be a human Chia Pet.

Maybe I’ll buy some, then go out and buy myself a nice dryer.

*

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles CA 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com.

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