It skips a generation.

Ben Ashcroft threw the front door of his house open like his wife hadn't seen for thirteen years when the neighbor's kid backed into their garbage cans. His face looked like an advertisement for fresh plums, complete with tiny droplets of perspiration. Marge could tell he'd been sweating profusely and saw the fury in his complexion. The few wispy hairs left on his head flew like a yellow quarantine flag in contrast to his purple face. "Get me the razor!" he yelled with the same urgency as the captain of a ship stuck in a storm. Marge turned the stove down to the simmer setting and scampered to the bathroom without asking questions. She knew better. Thirty years of marriage will do that to you.

When she returned with said item in hand Ben had disappeared from the foyer. She heard him rummaging through the junk drawer in the kitchen and crept cautiously to his aid. "Can I help you find something, Darling?" she asked in her most accommodating voice.

"Where are the scissors?" Ben snapped, now more the iron-fisted czar than the concerned seaman.

"They're on the table. I was cutting out some coupons earlier." She added that last detail as an excuse for having the audacity to have moved the scissors from the safe darkness of the junk drawer. It was an expert move.

Ben began to form a syllable of disapproval, but swallowed it instead. Marge's prompt explanation had defused the situation. He cursed womankind for having the upper hand, or at least knowing how to respond correctly at any given time. Thirty years of marriage will do that to you. "Very well, then. Towel. I'll need a towel," and he marched back out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

There was a lull in the absurdity of the scene, just enough time for the dog, the second one purchased after the first one's untimely demise at the hand of a brazen sixteen-year-old, to yawn. Nothing surprised him anymore in that household. He looked forward to walks moreso than was probably healthy, despite the risk of death by automobile.

Marge found a towel in the linen closet and made her way out into the fresh air of the summer afternoon. On the side of the house she found Ben unkinking the garden hose while mumbling words that only belonged on the walls of port towns' men's rooms. Once a steady stream was flowing from the nozzle he proceeded to fill the bucket next to him with water.

"Chop it off!" Ben ordered his wife as he thrust the scissors in her general direction.
"What?" she asked, still confused.
"This damn comb-over I've been sporting for the past eight years. Cut it off, now!"
She took the scissors from his hand and began clipping the sad strands of fading hair that only sprouted from the left side of his head. It didn't take more than forty seconds.
"Now shave the rest, Honey." Ben's face didn't look like a plum anymore. He was beginning to regain his mild-mannered composure. The "Honey" was his attempt to signify his return to normalcy.
"But why, Darling?" she asked sincerely. "I don't understand."
"If I'm going to be bald, I'm going to be bald. No more lying to myself." He smiled with the stubborn pride of a kamikaze pilot.

Marge didn't understand his change of heart. They'd spent countless hours discussing the topic when the abomination had first plagued Ben's scalp. She dipped her hands into the bucket of water and gently wet his head, then started shaving the thin strip of hair that remained around the back and sides of her husband's crown. When the last of it had been removed she told him it was finished and that he looked better, distinguished even. Ben grabbed the bucket of water and dumped it over himself to rinse off the remaining clippings. It looked like a second baptism that most of the other Catholics on the block had never experienced. Ben silently refused the towel Marge offered him, shook off like a dog, and strode inside confidently-- a new man suddenly happier with himself and the world around him. Marge's jaw stayed low as she watched in disbelief. Who was this imposter, and what had they done with her husband?

The scissors, razor, and towel were laying in the lime green lawn before her. Marge bent over to pick them up. "Good thing I turned the gas range down," she thought to herself as she switched back into dinner preparation mode. The long-sought revelation came when she turned around to head back inside to her spousal duties. The shiny new fire engine red convertible Ben had purchased for himself as an early retirement present was sitting in the driveway, heat waves distorting the air above its still-hot hood. The top, of course, was down. No salesman in his right mind would've reminded a balding potential buyer of the dangers of owning such a vehicle.

Ben's mid-life crisis had slapped him in the face for his entire commute home from work.

Marge Ashcroft laughed to herself quietly at the new phase of her marriage, looking around to make sure no one was watching. Thirty years of marriage will do that to you.