To Gel or not to Gel?

When I was in ninth grade I used to gel my hair all the time. It was a morning ritual. I would wake up and take a shower. A shower was a must, because you have all the gel in your hair from the night before. After I showered I would dry my hair lightly and then apply handfuls of Gel. Soon, my hair would be helmet like, impenetrable to wind, bugs, dust, anything really.

It really was the life. Putting on a shirt and or taking one off was a bit hard, sometimes they would become stuck to my hair, causing all sorts of discomfort. But I was on top of the world.

And then the dot.com bubble burst. Suddenly I found myself unable to support my Gel habit. After i lost my job I stopped worrying about my looks. I would roll out of bed, pop open a beer and watch T.V. I didn't matter if my hair was puffy or ugly or flat or anything.

You know it's true. It happened all over America. Hundreds of thousands of men suddenly stopped Gelling their hair. They just didn't care.

Things got better, economically speaking, but my pride never really returned. I never fully recovered. I resorted to short hair cuts and hats. Never again did I Gel my hair.

Well, things changed in Holland. You see, although Holland was hit hard by the dot.com bubble burst, the winds of fate saw fit to leave them with plenty of Gel. The day the bubble burst, there just so happened to be a huge shipment of Gel going through Amsterdam. Truckloads of the stuff were lined up waiting to be shipped to America. But suddenly their customer base was gone. The Gell companies folded and Holland was left with literally tons and tons of Gel. So the government began giving the stuff away. Much like health care.

Enter Eli Francovich, five years later. Fresh from india I hadn't thought about Gel in years. Ok, maybe months. But I wasn't ready for what Holland was going to throw at me. Every man, woman and child had Gel dripping out of their hair. At first I though "Nah, I ain't gonna use that stuff, it's too good for me." However, I soon realized I had no alternative. People looked at me weird. I was told on multiple occasions that "You "have the potential to look nice, but you really gotta do something with your hair." I began to Gel my hair.

Ever since then my self-confidence has begun to return. Sure, I'm unemployed, I don't have a college degree, the economy is a mess (again) and it's still snowing in Idaho, but hey, at least I have Gel in my hair, right?