When the faux-hawk met the chin-strap

I didn't win the genetic lottery. That's a sad fact of life that was made very apparent to me in the second grade when the high-school age "helpers" gave certain kids special badges and construction-paper flowers on Valentine's Day. I didn't get one - and it took me a very few minutes to figure out that the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tall, willowy types go the pretties. Not the people that looked like me.

I will be the first person to admit that I'm not pretty. But you know what, what I didn't get in pure genetics, I sure got in computing power. Those hookers that got some cheap construction paper flowers are currently shackled in unhappy marriages with screaming children attached to their skirts and pushing buggies around the Wal-Marts of northern Louisiana while the husbands load guns into the back of the pick-em-up trucks and track mud and dog hair across the linoleum of the double-wide. I'll take my urbane latte existence any day.

Anyway. What does this have to do with Starbucks? Nothing much really, except that I developed an appreciation for fashion and design after I left home and got out into the world. One of the most gorgeous things I own is an authentic full-length Christian Dior Homme trench coat that I picked up for $25 in a Salvation Army thrift shop. It retails for somethign approaching a grand, I think.

But I especially love hair. I have tales. Ask me some time.

I've been a blonde, a brunette, sable, a redhead, something approaching a brassy copper, orange, a very bizarre straw-colored yellow and most shades in-between, including a couple of days spent trying for a pure white before giving up before my hair fell out.

Hairstyles fascinate me - other than the fact that I have zero talent in actually cutting hair, I might have a career.

Thus, when the wonder of wonders I saw come through Starbucks Monday night hit my field of vision, I knew that this creation, this story, this incomprehensible construction MUST BE BLOGGED.

And seriously, if you followed @sbuxdrama, you'd already know that follicular fantasy of which I speak.

Here are the pertinent facts.

1. It was on a man. Which makes it all the more impressive.
2. There was a lot of hair.
3. The man in question was undeniably heterosexual.
4. The man in question was drinking a pumpkin spice latte.
5. Despite the facts presented in #4, I still hold that #3 remains true!
6. The hair was black. Very black. Styling gel was present, a great quantity in fact.
7. The first element involved a faux-hawk.
8. The second element involved a chin-strap.

WRAP YOUR HEAD AROUND THAT. The "Fin-Strap? Chin-hawk? Chin-hook?" I dunno. I like fin-strap.

Faux-hawk. Connected to sideburn. Which extended down to the chinstrap. Which wasn't all that narrow (just about the width of the sideburn) and went around the face. Which connected to the OTHER sideburn. Which went back up the faux-hawk.

IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH HAIR IN TOO MANY PLACES.

I just cannot adequately describe this.

There was just so much hair.

Every time I looked, there was a sight-line of hair going in a new direction. Off the front of the head, around the chin. Up the jaw. Up in to the hairline.

I think what made it worse was that he had shaved the sides of his head just slightly, so the faux-hawk was more of a mini-mohawk, and it just all looked bizarre.

That, and he was drinking a pumpkin spice latte. This I know for a fact, because I heard him order two of them - one for him, one for the girlfiend. And yes, she was his girlfriend, because he shared her front pants pockets on the cold, rainy day.

Just, wow.

I love Starbucks. You see all sorts of things.