It wasn’t until about 2:30 that my hairpiece began mauling small children. I must have dozed off in the sun after finishing my second cigarillo, otherwise I’m sure I would have noticed the commotion

“HOLY JESUS!”

“What in God’s name was that??”

“Olivia!”

None of this would have happened if my sister hadn’t started throwing away my toupee a few weeks ago. She was in the kitchen washing the breakfast dishes when I first confronted her.

“Where the hell did you put it?”

She pretended not to hear me as she scoured a saucepan.

“You know you have to use cooking oil when you make eggs, Colin. You always overcook them, and then I spend all morning trying to scrape the remainder off the bottom of the pan.”

“Where did you put it?”

“Put what?”

“You know what, Charlotte.”

I can never bring myself to say the word “toupee”. It’s just too painful.

Charlotte took her hands out of the dishwater and looked at me, shaking her head.

“You can’t honestly think it makes you look better.”

“I don’t need this right now. I’m late for work, just tell me where it is.”

“It doesn’t even match your normal hair color! Everyone knows it’s not real- it just looks like a piece of old carpet draped over your head.”

“I don’t care, Charlotte. I need it. Would you just give it to me?”

Sighing dramatically and rolling her good eye in every direction, she slumped out of the kitchen, gesturing for me to follow her to the side of the house, where we kept the dustbins.

“You wouldn’t!”

But there it was, buried beneath a pile of coffee grounds and banana peels, looking like a sad dead animal. I ran it under the shower head until it was wearable again, and my sister refused to look at me as I left for work.

When you start balding, you like to pretend it’s not happening. You are of course completely aware of the whole process. You notice that parts of your scalp are getting hot or cold faster than others, you feel the breeze more… but you pretend you don’t. Every time someone’s eyes flick to the thinning area, you notice. But you pretend you don’t. Receding hairlines run in my father’s side of the family. Whenever there was a family gathering, the balding men would group together like sad flamingos and watch the crowd, eyes lingering on the occasional thick, luscious head of hair of a passing male in-law. They would cover their own barren terrain creatively, with baseball caps, bowler hats, and even the occasional feathered fedora. And of course, when I spontaneously became a Calgary Flames fan, they knew hockey was not my priority.