The Story of Dave

Author's Note:The Aesop's Fable The Man and His Two Wives tells a story of an aging man with 2 wives, one young and one old, who feel differently about the man's grey hairs.  The young wife decides to pull out the greys, while the old wife pulls out the rest, intending to just leave grey.  He ends up bald. The moral of this story is "yield to all and you will soon have nothing to yield."  Though I appreciate the moral, I like to imagine that they came up with a solution that made everyone happy, so I turned it into a sort of poem with a different ending.   Enjoy. Dave's Cone Head Cartoon Head 31 by doodleguy on openclipart Dave was small in size but had two wives; their names, Greta and Cindy. One was old, age untold, while the other, 30 years his junior. He held them both dear but soon it was clear, Dave was beginning to age. Without Dave knowing, the greys started showing; his wives had different opinions. 10 years his senior, Greta was eager to stop being called his mother.  But Cindy quite feared the jabs from her peers, like calling Dave her great-grandfather. With what to do with their man, they both had a plan, but their thinking was quite the contrary. Cindy’s demand, tweezers in hand, was to pluck all those pesky greys out. David abided and laid by her side as she searched for those evil white hairs. The very next day, to Greta’s dismay, Dave’s hair was just looking black. With a long sigh and Dave’s head on her thigh, Greta had her turn with his locks. Soon he was bald, his wives quite appalled, not knowing where they had gone wrong. When he looked in the mirror, it couldn’t be clearer; Dave’s head was shaped like a cone! Being embarrassed because he was hairless was really bumming Dave out. Having taken an oath to please them both, Dave was in a predicament. At a family meeting, they ended up agreeing to only pluck half of his head. After quite the fight over who’d get the right, Cindy settled for the left. So every other evening to each woman’s pleasing, they’d pluck out the hairs that they did not like. Because of Dave’s tact, one half was black, and the other side solely grey. The next day in town, he was called a clown; everyone mocked Dave’s new ‘do. Dave did not care - he loved his hair, for reasons they did not quite get. This may sound sappy, but it made his wives happy, and that’s what Dave always strived for. They did not intend to start a trend, but half colored hair became all the rage. {Everyone hopes to be content.} Dave, after. (Not actually Dave) Photo courtesy of The Costume Guild on  Flickr Bibliography. "The man and His Two Wives" from The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs. Source.