10 Things Hair Can't Really Do

1) Stir Soup.
If you dipped then end of your ponytail in some soup and tried to give it a stir, I don't think you'd be pleased with the results. I guess if you had a whole lot of hair and some shellac, you could make some kind of stirring device. Unless shellac melts in hot soup. Then you're just back to swirly hair. Which really, no one wants in their soup. So, I'd say no. Hair would not make a good soup-stirrer.

2) Get you out of a traffic ticket.
I've heard it said that busty ladies can arch their backs and get all bustier and perhaps the officer who pulled them over won't write a ticket. I can arch my back all I want. Nothing sexy or busty happens at all. I just look like I'm trying to suppress a belch, which officers don't find sexy. I can imagine shaking my head back and forth to show my shiny hair or even grabbing the officers hand and making him pet the top of my head- neither of which I think will end with him not writing me a ticket. Officer =1. Hair = 0.

3) Stop a train.
If pennies on a track won't stop a train (experiment circa 1987), I'm pretty sure a wad of hair won't. I guess you could take a bunch of hair and try to make some sort of train-stopping net to go across the track, but I'm pretty sure the train would just bust right on through it. Aqua-Net, maybe. That could do it. But that's cheating, I think. You have to just use hair.

4) Provide a good substitute for contact lenses.
Take a piece of hair and swirl it around until you have a nice circular shape. Now, pop that in your eye. Open your eye if you can. Look around. Is your vision clearer? I didn't think so. You can't see very well through hair and it doesn't feel so good under the lids, either. I will not put hair in my eyes when I run out of contacts.

5) Relieve a sore throat.
This would involve gargling. Gargling with hair. I don't have cats, but I'm not unfamiliar with their hair-gargling, and perhaps that is to soothe their little throats. But I'm really thinking it through, and I can't see gargling with hair (1) working and (2) making me feel any better. Even if your hair were minty or echinacea-y or whatnot. It's still hair.

6) Pay your cab fare.
Get in a cab. Give desired location. Watch rain dance down window as you're driven through the streets. Smell stale cigarettes. Arrive at location. Pull out a clump of hair and hand it to the driver. Open the door to exit. Pull a smaller clump out and hand it to the driver and say, "I forgot the tip. Here. Keep it." Run.

7) This one's not appropriate for print.  But, trust me. I just pictured about 5 things hair couldn't do and if I mentioned them, I could never see another one of you in public again. Give it some thought. Picture something. Ew! Right? See? Hair does not work. Repeat thought process 4 more times for 4 different results. Blech. There's another thought. I must move on.

8) Defend you in court.
After the first lawyer gets up and makes you feel like a total ass, the judge is all, "It's your turn, hair." And then the hair just sits there on the table or on the floor or wherever it is. Even if you hold it up so everyone can hear what it has to say, it's just hair and no one will take it seriously. Or be able to hear it. Because hair doesn't talk or defend people in court. So it's about now that you realize all of the money you've shelled out is going to get you nothing but time in jail. Hair would be a useless defender.

9) Grade papers.
I put a piece of hair on a big stack of essays the other day and then left for a long run. I was really clear about what that hair had to do while I was gone and I put a pen within reach. When I came back, the hair was still in the same place and not a single essay had been graded. The pen didn't look like it had moved at all and hair was laughing at me. That last part isn't exactly true, but all the other parts are.

10) Go get help in the case of an emergency.
God forbid I ever fall down and really need some assistance. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that hair is narcissistic and downright rude and has no intention of helping anybody out when they need it. I don't know about your hair, but if it's anything like mine, I'm fairly certain that lying in a pile of my own fluids, hair would relax into itself and be totally content to laze about while I work myself into a panic. Thanks for nothing, hair.