National Debt and Hair Loss

I ALWAYS wondered how federal policymakers could be so oblivious to the size of the national debt. The United States now owe banks and foreign countries about $3 trillion, constituting a large chunk of our Gross National Product. Each year we spend more than $130 billion in interest payments on the debt--money America could otherwise use to solve several major national problems.

Why, I used to ask myself, doesn't anybody do something about the debt?

That was before hair began to accumulate on our shower drain. Now, after three months of living with The Mound, I am beginning to understand some fundamentals of American economic policy. Problems may be so obvious and so disgusting that nobody dares do anything about them.

THAT'S right. I'm going to talk about hair loss, a subject that strikes fear into the hearts of Harvard men of all academic concentrations. Hair loss is a warning sign of our own mortality, and perhaps more importantly, of the passing of our social prime. One day, we too many become overweight and middle-aged men who have a bizarre affinity for barbecues.

It's a horrible thought to deal with. About as horrible, in fact, as the United States dealing with its passing from the center of the global stage. Nobody wants to talk about the national debt because nobody wants to deal with its inevitable ramifications.

So in my rooming group, the first reaction to hair on the shower drain was denial.

"That's not hair," we told each other. "Those are very fine iron shavings that result from the unique rusting process of a Leverett House shower drain."

But then The Mound began to grow. And grow. Soon we had to step around the drain while taking a shower. And when we missed...never mind. I don't want to think about it.

My rooming group thus faced the inevitable decision: Would we continue to ignore The Mound or would we clean it up? Our decision was much like the federal government's choice in recent years: Ignore the problem, or act?

We did what any rational, thinking group of Harvard men would do when confronted with hair on the shower drain. We blamed one another.

"You're becoming a ping-pong ball!" my roommate yelled.

"Baby's bottom!" I shouted back. I tape recorded advertisements to the Hair Club for Men and played them to my roommates as they slept.

Quite predictably, defensiveness set in.

"I'm not really balding," claimed one of my roommates. "These patches are where I remove hairs consciously. I'm going for the distinguished balding look."

"I'm not losing hair!" said another. "And if I am, I'm not losing hair in the shower. And if I am, I'm not losing as much as you guys!"

"And if I am," he said running into his room, "I don't care!"

SO we passed the buck of who was responsible for The Mound, just as Congress and the president have accused one another of responsibility for the national debt.

And The Mound grew.

We began to check our geneologies. Are our fathers bald? Are our uncles bald? Are our maternal third cousins bald? What about the dog? In the height of hysteria, we ignored the basics of genetic research. After intense soul- searching, each of us concluded: "I won't be bald. Yeah, that's it."

Finally, crisis. The shower water could not break through The Mound, and the shower area began to flood. Our soap boxes and shampoo containers floated in the muck; taking a shower was like wading through the Nile.

It was time for action.

We bought drano.

From a distance of several feet, we threw cups and cups of drano upon The Mound. It hissed back at us. It began to move. But it didn't go away.

So we bought more drano. And more. We were now exceeding the recommended dosage by several orders of magnitude.

"Drano: the quick fix," we thought. Just stand back and the problem will go away. Is this what Congress hoped with the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction package?

Finally, one roommate and I got down on our hands and knees and did the dirty work. We removed The Mound. We removed additional hair that had sunk into the shower drain. We removed so much hair it was as if one of those furry little dogs had simply died in our shower.

So as of last week, The Mound was gone. But now, as of the last few days, Son of Mound is beginning to grow.

In the meantime, absolutely no real progress has been made to balance the budget. Why?

Maybe it's because lawmakers don't have to worry about stepping in the national debt.