Wink Finstermann sat in the chair, twiddling his thumbs, admiring his side profile in the wall sized mirror. His stylist, Effie, held up the small mirror, spun his chair around so he could see the back of his head, and asked, "How do you like it?".

     "It" was the appropriate description, because, you see, Wink had only one hair, a single, healthy, growing hair, right on the top of his shiny bald head, a full four inches of pampered pride.

     A few years back, he and four drinking buddies had made a wager that the last one to go completely bald would be the winner and recipient of an account into which each participant had put one thousand dollars. Then, Wink had a full head of hair, and had no idea that time would conspire so badly against him and his curly locks.

     Of course, once the hair started to fall, it continued at an even greater rate, creating stress that caused even more hair loss.

     He tried every baldness cure he could find, every miracle pill that existed, even went to Nepal, looking for a tree whose leaves were rumored to restore a healthy head of hair. He never found that mythical tree, but he did convert to Taoism and released the stress that was the cause of the majority of his hair loss.

     It was just in time, too. He was down to the last hair now, and was on an intensive haircare campaign to baby the single remaining follicle.

     "I like it."

     Effie fussed with his collar, tickled his neck with a soft brush. There weren’t any visible clippings, really, except the quarter inch she had, with great fanfare, trimmed from the hair. First, though, the hair had been colored, (a light sandy brown), washed, conditioned, blow dried, and styled with a forward leaning curl.

     A final spritz of uv protector, hair net in place, Wink stood, walked to the front, pulled a fifty from his wallet and threw it on the counter.

     "Thanks again, Effie. Great job."

     "You’re welcome, Mr. Finstermann, same time next week?"