I now hold the record for the longest consecutive streak of bad haircuts since the invention of the sheep shears in 1,000 BC. Since the age of 3, I have experienced 378 bad haircuts in a row, and have the 379th scheduled for next week, God willing.

I blame no one but myself. I am cursed with wavy hair and cowlicks -a combination so volatile and unpredictable, I actually carry a doctor's prescription for a hat.

If I wore a crew cut, this article wouldn't be necessary. It's not a look that works for me. I tried one when I was 23. Fifteen minutes after I walked out of the barbershop, I was standing in a police lineup accused of robbing a string of gas stations in Oklahoma.

I have to keep my hair a little longer to avoid the career criminal look but short enough so people don't assume I work clown parties on the weekends.

I'm a barber's worst nightmare because I'm not a crew cut guy. They enjoy giving crew cuts because all they need is a pair of clippers and a little conversation. There's no finesse in crew cuts, no risks. Whenever I sink into the chair, they automatically reach for the clippers and when I tell them I just want a trim, they start looking at my head like it's the Manhattan Project. It's not uncommon to have three barbers looking at my head at the same time, like baseball managers standing around the pitcher's mound deciding whether to try a little pep talk or send for the reliever. I've had barbers spontaneously retire while I sat in their chairs. One even tried to convince me that I'd be better off cutting it myself.

My quest for a decent haircut has taken me around the country. I've tried barbers and hairdressers in hotels, airports, in vacation cities - even at a barber college where the cuts are free because the kids are in training. I figured a barber college would be an excellent place to get a good, well-executed haircut because the kids would be so excited about entering a new profession.

I scheduled an appointment at a local college and the dean assigned me to a young woman named Ingrid who was actually the class valedictorian. She truly was an artist. Half way through my haircut, which was looking spectacular, she received a letter from the board of regents notifying her that her graduate thesis on the benefits of washing a customer's hair after a haircut to remove the excess clippings would not be published. She ran out of the salon in tears followed by her concerned classmates and I found myself walking home with half the best haircut I ever had in my life. Believe me, I was tempted to keep it that way.

I've done some duplicitous things in search of a decent haircut. Even lying. Whenever I sit down in the chair of a new barber or hairdresser, the first thing out of my mouth is, "I'm getting married this Saturday, and I really need this haircut to look good." Once I made the mistake of using the same marriage line on a barber I had been to before. He looked at me coldly and said, "I thought you told me you were getting married last year."

"I did," I said. "But when my fiancé took one look at the haircut you gave me a year ago, she called the whole thing off."

With all the technology that is available, I don't know why I can't get a decent haircut. It seems like those Lasix machines they use to correct vision would work if they made a couple of adjustments. You probably wouldn't have to do much more than mount one inside a helmet type device. I don't know that I'd trust a barber to use one of those but if you were a licensed eye doctor looking for a competitive edge you could offer corrective eye surgery and a haircut for one, all inclusive price.

In my experience, getting a good haircut isn't a matter of price either. I've paid as little as $8 and as much as $75 for bad haircuts, and the only difference between the inexpensive salons and the expensive ones is that sometimes you can get a glass of organic juice.

The average scalp has 100,000 hairs. Approximately 50,000 of mine grow in different directions. Maybe what I need is a comb made from the bone of an old sheepdog.