Top to Bottom by Bald Surfer

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When I was in high school, I always kept my hair buzzed short. I was on the football team and hated having a lot of hair under my helmet. When I went away to college, I left football behind and decided to grow my hair out a bit, so I went through my freshman year without ever getting it cut. I thought a year without a haircut would leave me with long hair - like ponytail long. But 6 inches just looks shaggy, not the long look I expected, so I was determined to keep growing it.

I started to work out regularly with my old football buddies while I was home that summer. Most of them had kept their short buzzes and gave me a lot of crap over my shaggy look. They also teased me about the thick carpet of chest hair that had grown in over that first year away. I guess it was such a gradual change to me that I never noticed, but after not seeing me all year, the change was obvious to the guys. Like a lot of muscle heads, they kept their body hair trimmed or shaved completely. That seemed like a lot of work to me, even though they told me I was hiding all my hard earned muscle under the fur.

I got a job mowing lawns for the summer, and as the days grew hotter and hotter, I really began to hate my shaggy hair. It had been growing for a year, it still didn't look the way I wanted it to, and now it was uncomfortable as hell. If it looked good, I might have toughed it out, but it didn't look good enough to be worth keeping in the sweaty summer heat. It had to go.

After work one afternoon, I headed over to my old barber shop. All 4 chairs were filled, and quite a few people were waiting. Everyone in a chair seemed to be getting some sort of buzz or crew cut. And of the guys waiting, nobody had hair more than an inch long. Was I the only guy in town who hadn't given in yet?

As I waited, I wasn't nervous, but my stomach was still doing flip flops. I think I was just getting excited about getting all that hair taken off. Finally, my favorite barber, Gerardo, was ready for me. As I sat down in the chair, it was obvious that Gerardo, who cut my hair every 2 weeks all through high school, didn't even recognize me. When I told him it was me, he said "You've changed so much. Not just the long hair. You've become a man!" I took it as a compliment and told him I wanted it cut just like the old days - #2 on top with the back and sides faded to the skin. "And like back then, " I told him "I mean SKIN. Don't stop til you hit bone."

He grabbed the old Osters, put on the shortest blade and I heard the familiar snap and whir as they came to life. He put the clippers at the bottom of my below the ear sideburns and ran them halfway up my head, leaving the barest bit of stubble behind. Pass after pass, he worked his way around my head, six inches of black hair tumbling onto the cape and floor, until he'd come all the way around and run them up my remaining sideburn. I was still shaggy on top, but halfway up my entire head was now skinned. "Let's get the rest of this down and then I'll blend it," he told me. And then he put the #2 blade on the clippers and went to work.

He took off the rest of the left side running the clippers front to back, and then he was at the top. As he took the first front to back passes over the top of my head, I smiled and said "There I am!". I was starting to feel like myself again. After he'd finished taking it all down to a #2, he grabbed the edgers and took the bottom half down even closer. Then, using blade after blade, patiently blended the back and sides into a perfect fade. After that, the electric razor came out, taking off the last ghostly stubble from my sideburns and the skinned parts of my head. I'd forgotten how the sound of shaving parts of your head resonates in your head. Hot lather around the edges and a straight razor finished the job. I was so excited about my new/old look and I knew I'd never want long hair again. I told Gerardo he'd be seeing me in 2 weeks for another cut.

I went home and wanted to shower off all the hair clippings down my back. I took off my clothes and stopped to look in the mirror to again admire my cut. And then it hit me. With my hair gone, that hairy chest I'd developed looked ridiculous. Longer than my head hair, it looked unkempt and out of balance. Through the fur, I could see that a summer of working in the heat, combined with my regular gym workouts had left me looking really ripped. There was only one choice. I pulled out my beard trimmers, put them at the top of my chest and ran them across my collarbone and watched the chest hair start to fall. I worked my way down, carefully avoiding my nipples, and kept going until I was below the waste. I wasn't going to go "full monty", so as I got to my bush, I left a small patch and trimmed it down to a #2. That looked better. More fitting with my new haircut. And my exposed six pack abs looked RIPPED. But now my hairy arms looked out of place. I'd come this far, so off came the arm hair. You never realize how much arm hair you have until you see it in a pile in your sink. As I raised my arm to get the last bits from my tricep, I realized the pits would have to go too. I went in the shower, covered my arms and chest in shaving cream, and 20 minutes and 2 blades later, I was smoother than I'd been since I was 12.

I stood there, admiring my sheared upper body. The new buzzcut, the shaved and ripped arms and torso. I was loving my new look. But suddenly my furry legs looked like a pair of hair pants. Clippers came back out of the drawer. Off came all the leg hair. It didn't seem odd to me, because during football season, we used to shave our legs because of the tape. When all of it was done, there I stood, my only hair was a #2 buzz on the top of my head and a #2 patch of pubes.

The next morning, I went to meet my buddies at the gym. As I got out of the car, they immediately saw the haircut and howled in approval. "About damn time!" "You finally look like a dude again!". We went into the locker room and as I stripped down to put on my workout clothes they saw that I'd shaved my body too. They seemed to take full credit for my transformation. "You finally listened" "We told you you'd look better without the carpet"

I was feeling great about the changes. I'd have to adjust my budget to cover 2 haircuts a month and LOTS of razor blades, but that was OK. I loved the way I was looking. My buddies made me feel great. Only one challenge remained - what would my girlfriend think when I got back to school? But that's another story...

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