When I was 13 I found myself at the pool with several friends. We were at that annoy everyone else in the water age where we'd perform cannonballs and engage in bewildering splash fights without regard for other pool-goers. Upon arriving at our destination and losing our non-swimming garb, the first challenge of the day was to see who could swim underwater the furthest. So we all charged to the side of the pool and performed awkward dives over the little tikes hanging on the side and began a frenzied race along the pool floor, weaving around the legs of the less active.

Near the other side, contestant's heads started surfacing, immediately looking around to see how they fared. I popped up a respectable second and was grinning at my accomplishment when one of my cohorts pointed at me and said, "You were supposed to swim underwater DeArmitt." I looked at him startled thinking some deception was at hand to pilfer my silver. "What are you talking about, of course I swam underwater". His reply was one I would never forget and that would haunt me for many school pictures to come. "Then why's your hair dry?"

I raised my hand to feel my head only to find he was right. While everyone else's hair was matted cleanly to their foreheads, mine still leapt wildly away from my skull. It was at that precise moment that the discovery process began, a process that ever confirmed that I was not like all the other boys in that I, unlike them, had water repellant hair.