He's Cheap & It's Expensive

Thanks, loyal readers, for all your suggestions concerning my itchy scalp, which I mentioned in my "Mazda? Mazda!" column (April 28, 2025). I’ve tried several things. 

    T-Gel shampoo. 

    Psoriasis shampoo. 

    Dandruff shampoo.

    None of them worked. 

    They were, in fact, sham poos.

    Experts say going weeks without washing your hair helps. The only problem with that is I want to stay married and apparently experts don't. I've begun eating yogurt because experts also say it’s good for controlling dandruff, which is a kind of yeast growing on our heads. I still have dandruff, so I don't know, but on the plus side I've become very regular when I go, um, to see a man about a horse, if you get my drift. Those very same experts also tell me rinsing your hair with vinegar helps, but who wants to go around smelling like a pickle? No, my friends, instead of Brylcream I need an anti-itch cream. 

    Through trial and error I've learned the one thing that seems to help is washing my hair often (so much for experts), but I’ve heard washing it too much washes out the natural oils causing--you guessed it--a dry, itchy scalp. 

    I asked my older but less attractive brother, "If you have any suggestions (suggestions that work, I mean), I’ll give them a try," because there's a nine-year difference in our ages, so, theoretically, he has a decade's worth of experience for me to learn from.

    He says his scalp began itching over three year ago, but only the back area where the straps of his CPAP mask wrap around that big basketball-sized head of his. He's tried everything to control it. Rubbing baby oil, coconut oil, Olive Oyl, etc. ​onto his scalp, then letting it sit for 30 minutes before washing it off. Nothing worked. The only thing he learned was he has an awful lot of time on his hands to be rubbing his head so much. 

    When in doubt, see a professional, so he went to his doctor. The same one who, when my brother told him he sometimes got dizzy when he got up too fast, told him, "Then don't get up so fast."

    Who's his doctor?

    Henny Youngman? 

    The doctor checked his scalp and his official medical diagnosis was, "Well, you don’t have lice.” 

    My brother wanted to say something, but took five deep breaths instead. Sadly, doctors aren't like restaurants where you can just willy-nilly decide to leave and not go back. 

    I don't usually like to give descriptive information about myself or my family, but I will tell you I have more melanin than the average bear because it's important to the story.

     I asked him, "Would that doctor have made the same remark about lice to you if you had been Anglo?"

    "Hmm..." my brother answered. 

    In the end, our final consensus was no one knows what's in another person's heart.

    To make a much longer story shorter, the doctor prescribed anti-itch medicine for my brother. Not the over-the-counter crap. That's for his Obamacare patients. So my brother's new routine is he uses Head & Shoulders as directed. 

     Wash, rinse, repeat. 

     Wash, rinse, repeat. 

     Wash, rinse, repeat. 

     Wash, rinse, repeat. 

     Wash, rinse, repeat. 

    Until his wife tells him to stop already and get the hell out of the bathroom.

    Just kidding, of course. I'm thinking about my kids and the hours they waste in the shower. No, my brother washes his hair and rinses. Washes it again, but then leaves the dandruff shampoo on until he's done squandering our most precious of resources. A final rinse with cool water and he's done. He only uses the anti-itch cream once or twice a month because he's cheap and it's expensive. He didn't tell me that was his reason, I just know how he is. I'm assuming he doesn't have dandruff because his wife is still willing to be seen with him in public.

    "And that's it, old man," he said, ending his story and waking me up from a nice nap.

     Speaking of wash, rinse, repeat, did I mention my brother will stare at canned orange juice because it says "concentrate"? 

     Anyway... 

     He's probably right about the straps to his CPAP irritating his scalp because the same thing happens to me, so the only thing I need to do now is...

    Check for lice.