I have a friend from England who married a Japanese woman. The couple used to live in Tokyo, not far from where my wife and I live, and so we used to spend time together. Generally we would start drinking alcohol in a group of four, and keep drinking alcohol together for several hours until we were all pretty drunk. Then I would sit and chat with my friend, whom I will call Mark, while my wife would sit and chat with his wife, whom I will call Noriko.
As we got drunker, we would start to make jokes aimed at each other. Noriko in particular enjoyed making jokes at her husband’s expense.
“Mark is getting balder and balder,” she used to say. “Shall we turn the lights down? The light is shining off his balding head as brightly as a light-bulb. Mark, you’re a light-bulb!”
My poor friend had started to lose his hair early, in his late twenties. I loved spending the evening with Mark and Noriko, and I used to laugh hard at Noriko’s light-bulb comparisons.
I wish I hadn’t laughed so hard. I am 39 years old now, and my own head is starting to shine like a light-bulb in the middle. When I went to the barber recently, he gave me some tips about how to make my hair look thicker.
“I will leave your hair longer at the sides, and you can comb it into the middle to cover the bald patch. I also help customers with wigs, you know…”
On the bright side -pardon the pun -in Western comic-books, showing a character’s head as a light-bulb signifies that they have had a sudden, “bright idea”. It is a sign of intelligence.
So I am not going to try to hide my increasing baldness. I am confident that people who see me will shade their eyes from the glare and think, “That man’s brain must be hot with ideas. It is a sure sign that he is a clever fellow!”
My friend Mark is smart too. At least I think so. We light-bulbs have to stick together, and not laugh too hard at one another.
Vocabulary:
“whom I will call…” – in other words, the writer is choosing to give these people false names
to make a joke at (one’s husband’s) expense – to make a joke in which people are supposed to laugh at (one’s husband)
to be balding – to be losing one’s hair
a patch – a spot or area
a wig – a set of fake hair, usually used by bald or balding people in order to hide their condition
a pun – a word or phrase with a double-meaning
a glare – a bright light which hurts the eyes to look at
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