e9c12ac8d703d9a536f23183edf8b22c

He shifted his attention to Ted Trapper, his other neighbor, and saw how that mild-mannered accountant was using the expensive pressure washer he’d recently bought and had bragged about to divest his deck of moss and other green eyesores. Then Ted caught sight of one of his precious garden gnomes, wavered a moment, then applied the high-powered tool on the gnome. Immediately the gnome exploded into a thousand pieces, and Ted’s anguishedcry could probably be heard all through the neighborhood. Tex committed the moment to memory, to brighten up an otherwise dull day, and the only regret he felt, as he gave Ted a jolly wave, was that he hadn’t caught the scene on video.

He proceeded down the stairs and into the kitchen, and his daughter Odelia, who’d popped in to borrow some eggs, must have noticed that dear old dad was in one of his moods again, and came over to give him a rub on the back. “Everything all right, Dad?”

“I’m losing my hair,’” he grumbled as he looked in the fridge for those strawberries Vesta had mentioned. “Soon I’ll be bald, and who knows what else life has in store for me.”

Odelia couldn’t suppress a smile, and seeing it reminded Tex that he was being a total grump. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “It’s just that getting old sucks, you know.”

“I know, Dad,” said Odelia indulgently, smiling with all the radiance of youth.

“Ted is cleaning his gnomes,” he said, abruptly changing the subject. “He bought himself one of those pressure washers—the most expensive one he could find at Costco’s—and he decided to try it on those damn gnomes of his. Of course it immediately fell apart. I could have told him, if he’d listen, but of course Ted always knows better.” The thought of Ted’s face crumpling tickled his funny bone once more, and so it was with a slight diminution of grumpiness that he poured himself a cup of hot black coffee and sat down to enjoy a hearty breakfast. “By the way, Max and Dooley are playing out by that old car wreck. You better tell them to stay away from there. They might hurt themselves.”

“Max and Dooley are always careful. They’ll be fine.”

He shrugged. In the Poole household the cats were mainly the womens’ concern. With no less than four cats divided between the two households, they were very well endowed with representatives of the feline species, and mostly Tex didn’t mind. The only thing he did mind was the hair. Even now, as he ladled a spoon of strawberry yogurt into his mouth, he suddenlynoticed a white hair adorning the main strawberry, ready to be ingested by this unsuspecting human. With a shake of the head, he plucked it out and wondered how much cat hair he’d swallowed in his life as a consequence of having to share home and hearth with those cats. And as he glanced over to Harriet and Brutus, who were eating their fill at their respective bowls, he suddenly found himself wondering why it was that cats never got bald. And now that he thought about it, dogs were the same way. “Honey?” he said, deciding to ask the expert. “Have you ever seen a bald cat?”

“No, I can’t say that I have,” said Marge, who was reading something on her phone.

“Dad, you really shouldn’t worry about losing your hair,” said Odelia, who was standing behind him, and was inspecting the crown of his head with deft fingers.

“I told him exactly the same thing,” said Marge, “but he doesn’t believe me.”

But Tex was too busy following up on this most recent brainstorm he’d just experienced. So cats and dogs didn’t lose their hair—ever? Not even when they got old and entered their senior years? It was definitely something he needed to follow up on.

“You have a tiny birthmark here, Dad,” said Odelia. “In the shape of a butterfly. So cute.”

“He has?” asked Marge, as she came to stand next to her daughter to join the inspection. “Oh, you’re right. Can you imagine I’ve been married to your father for twenty-five years and I’ve never seen this before?”

“What’s going on?” asked Vesta, who’d come stomping down the stairs and now joined the merriment. “What’s so interesting?”

“Tex has a birthmark in the shape of a butterfly,” said Marge.

“What do you know?” said Vesta as she also took a gander at the strange phenomenon.

“This is the first time I’ve seen this.”

“Of course it is. Before now, Tex’s hair was so thick and luxuriant you couldn’t see through the thicket. But now that he’s going bald all kinds of stuff will be showing up.”

Tex looked up sharply at this, causing Marge to yank at a small tuft of hair.“See?” he said. “Your mother is seeing it, too. Iam losing my hair.”