Based On A True Story

A brief autobiographical amusement…

When I Get Old

Grandma, just to explain, had multiple bouts of cancer late in life and multiple bouts of chemo, which makes all your hair fall out. The problem with having your hair fall out isn’t just that you look rather startling, but your scalp gets very, very cold, and very very tender, and normal hats are much too abrasive, particularly when it starts to grow back and itches like blazes.

Grandma’s novel solution to this problem was to buy cotton underwear and wear it on her head around the house. My mental image of her, until the day I die, will involve her wearing pink panties on her head, with her regrowing hair sticking through the leg holes in tufts, and one eyebrow ironically cocked as if to say “What are you lookin’ at?”

God willing, I will not ever need chemo, but if fate and genetics conspire against me, I’m wearin’ underwear on my head.

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