Eleanor watched as her husband tugged at his hair. It annoyed her that he did it. It was distracting to watch him tug while they were having a conversation. She resisted the urge to turn around and talk to him with her back turned, so that she could not see what she didn't want to see.

She'd already asked him not to do it while they were talking, but he continued anyway. She decided to simply not tell him all that she wanted to share, and she cut the conversation short.

Days and weeks passed, her husband constantly tugging, and Eleanor hating the feelings of annoyance that she had toward her husband and his habit. He did it in the morning. He did it when he came home at night. He did it at the dinner table. He did it while they were watching movies. It drove her crazy.

One day he finally admitted that his hair bothered him because it was thinning. "No kidding!" She wanted to scream. "You are pulling it all out!"

But instead she said, "That's okay. Bald is sexy." And she meant this. She meant it because her vision of bald was Bruce Willis and/or Mr. Clean. Bruce Willis is the very epitome of manliness, and Mr. Clean…well, come on. He's buff AND he helps out around the house.

It was during a walk that she was considering what her husband had said, and she came to the very happy realization that if he continued his tugging, he'd eventually have nothing to pull. His head would be entirely bare. And he'd very likely look pretty good. So, it was merely a matter of time.

But a long time passed. Seven years later, he had significantly less hair, but still enough to tug, and he did tug, even more than before. She avoided talking to him. She sat on the floor during their movie time, so that he was behind her on the couch. This way he could tug, but she couldn't see him do it. Five years later, he had only a little weird mass of hair of that sort of sprung out of the back of his head.

She wished he'd cut it off, but he didn't want to. She started having dreams about his hair. In one, she carefully cut his hair with the garden shears while he slept. In another, they were in the kitchen. She was cutting vegetables. He turned her to face him and gave her a hug, and while her arms were around him, she cut his hair with the knife.

Another one was very satisfying. In it, she'd adopted some sort of animal. It looked like a cross between a cat and a rat. Her husband sat, very content and very willing, as the animal carefully chewed the hair off. Then it swept away all chewed up pieces with its tiny paws. Her husband thanked the little animal as he admired his reflection in the mirror. Eleanor had awakened with a smile after that one.

One day, Eleanor was having coffee with a friend. She lamented about her husband's hair and told her friend about the dreams.

"I think that you need to find a new obsession," laughed her friend. "You know he's not going to cut it off. Just find something to do that keeps you distracted enough not to even think about his hair. But, besides that, I have an idea. Are you free this Saturday?"

"Yes, why?"

My cousin is bald. And very good looking. We're planning on going to the art festival, because his girlfriend is selling some paintings. Come along. We'll take plenty of pictures, and I will "accidentally" send them to your husband's phone.

"I don't want to give him the wrong impression," said Eleanor.

"We don't have to! I didn't mean it the way it came out. You don't even need to be in the pictures. Just take a whole bunch of me and my cousin. You can even get a few of us looking at art, and he'll see the back of my cousin's beautiful, bald head. It's worth a try, and even if it doesn't work, you'll have a day out of the house."

….

Eleanor thoroughly enjoyed the day at the art festival. That night, her husband received several photos that Eleanor's friend sent. "Who's that guy?" he asked.

"Cindy's cousin."

"Hmm…," her husband answered as he tugged his gross little tuft of hair.

He didn't cut it that night, or the next, or even the next week.

Eleanor decided that her distraction would be everything smooth. She replaced the couch with a sleek bench. She replaced the appliances with chrome appliances. She bought satin sheets. She quit wearing cotton, and she started wearing silk. She bought a hairless cat.

She found great joy in all of it. And when her husband came home, tugging, tugging, endlessly tugging, she stood (gracefully, smoothly), and retreated to the spare room where she spent hours researching and learning. She'd made herself plans to research art, history, and places. She learned Italian. She read books and she watched movies, while holding the hairless cat. And in this way, she learned to ignore what she could not change and to embrace other things in life.