I know you've felt BHD because everyone I ask understands. Everyone immediately empathizes. Everyone comments on the hat. But it's not funny when I'm going through it.

The onset of BHD is when the stylist (assailant) does not understand that the medium for their "art" is not my head. I am just living my life. I am not prepared to have my ears suddenly look disproportionate to my shoulders. I don't want to look into the mirror and flash on Paul Anka. If I didn't have a forehead when I came in, I don't want one now.

They must teach in beauty college how to hand the client the little mirror. (Like we care what the back looks like). Simultaneously, the student must repeat "Do you like it?" and freeze while pretending to admire their masterpiece.

Notice they never look in the mirror at this moment. Because YOU are looking in the mirror. Avoiding eye contact is essential for the guilty as, more often than not, the client (victim) has a primordial response; an upsurge of aggression, panic, hatred, pure rage and violence.

Helplessness and full blown BHD set in soon enough. Faced with reality, one looks away quickly. "Could it really be that bad?" "Is anyone laughing at me?" "Should I make a scene?"

You gaze around and everyone is pretending to be busy. It's group pity.

And then the most infuriating moment civil people must endure, the moment of supreme irony: You are now supposed to tip the villain!!!

It is hard to calculate the loss in productivity caused by bad haircuts. I lose about a week a year, my wife can lose a month at a time if it's a coloring. Want to balance the budget? Get this hair problem under control.

The first step is to have licensing policies re-evaluated and strictly enforced. If you're a bad salesman, you don't get commissions. If you're a bad mechanic, you get sued and go out of business.  But someone can give bad haircuts year after year. Painter's supposed to paint your house brown, it comes out red ... do you have to tip him? Come on. Bad doctors have to move out of the state, let's be fair.

There should be mandatory haircut counseling before any major style change. A short meeting between parties, a few signatures, perhaps a phone call to a responsible adult...

Programs at the junior high school level are of major importance. The highest suicide rate in our population is among teens. Also the worst hairdos. We can only come to one conclusion here.

For victims of BHD I suggest a 10 step program that would guarantee 100% success. When sufferers meet, they first acknowledge there is a higher force. Later they could share their horror, confront their anger and exchange hats. As time passed, some lights could be turned on.

They should meet every day for two weeks. That should solve theproblem.