A long time ago, when this century was new, I had really long hair . . . and tons of earrings, and boy did I look good.  I decided the only way I could possibly look any cooler was to get dreads, and boy was I right.

But things change, and I decided (with encouragement from upper management) that the dreadlocks had to go.  I got my first haircut in about 3 years.  The earrings remained firmly in place.

I was a young man and the dress code was pretty lax around the office, so the hair grew out a bit, as did the five o’clock shadow.  The earrings refused to budge.

A friend and I went to a local cafeteria-style restaurant one day and as we passed through the line, one of the servers toward the end eyed me curiously.  “Do we know one another?” I asked myself, “Did we attend high school together?”

When we finally approached her she paused thoughtfully and said, “You look like Wham!”

You want to know the sad thing? It took two more years before I got rid of the earrings.