Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

Some of the greatest inventions of the last century were born either in a garage or scribbled on a napkin in a restaurant.

Sometime during the month of July 2023, I watched a good friend of mine eating a huge sandwich at a restaurant. The lady is very fit even though she is eating five hearty meals a day.

And, while stuffing her face with the aforementioned sandwich, I asked her, “What’s your secret for not getting fat?”

She thought for a moment and, with a sparkle in her eyes, she said, “My hair!”

“Say what now?” I asked, bewildered.

“Yes, my hair. My hair is special,” she continued, “It needs lots of nutrients, and more than half of what I eat goes towards maintaining my hair. The rest is for my body, but there is not much left, so I’m good.”

At the beginning, I was sure that she was making fun of me, but her husband, lovingly nicknamed DOTH, also has long hair, is wearing a nice beard, and he is also very fit.

I asked, just to be sure: “Is his hair, too?”

“Of course,” they both answered, very serious, yet a little bit annoyed. How can I ask such a stupid question?

Hmmm, food for thought …

First thing after they left, I jumped on the Internet to see if we are the first ones who thought about LHD.

WolframAlpha, very serious search engine … no result, they offered to calculate anything, anytime, but no LHD, they didn’t hear of it. When I wanted to close the page, a dialog box kept asking if they can calculate something for me. It was like they were begging: please, please, let us calculate something.

Second, DuckDuckGo, also serious search engine: LHD – Landing Helicopter Dock, military stuff, nothing to do with hair, didn’t ring a bell or even a quack-quack.

Google, all over the place: LHD takes me to the same military equipment, plus some Investment advisers in Indiana, but no hair diet.

So, I agreed, after a discussion with myself, that this could be a nice idea for a business. Diets are all over the place, one crazier than the other, there is enough room for new one.

What we need:

• One bullshitter, a person that identifies as a marketer, whose very important role is to also write the materials
• A flashy, yet professional looking web site, five pages, no more, otherwise people get bored
  • A picture of a doctor recommending the diet – the person identified as a marketer will write the spiel and it will be posted on the page near the good looking doctor – no details about the said doctor, who he/she/they is/are or where he/she/they is/are from, the looks are enough
  • A study from a team of British researchers (again, no clue will be given where the researchers came from and not too much information about the study, just the conclusion); the study will show without a doubt that longer the hair, fitter the person
  • A Page with Testimonials, signed by John D., Mary O., names like this, testimonials written by the bullshitter, all different, …
  • A Shopping page, people have to have a nice set-up to be able to part with their money
  • An About Us page, absolutely legit, email, address, phone number – of course, legit (ish)

You can buy a domain for $0.01. Any domain registrar worth their salt is giving you a free website builder. Or you can do it for free on WordPress.com. Or you can spend a little dough and add social media promotions, anyway, with less than $100.00 you can launch the next Diet Craze.

Until then, I started letting my beard and hair grow. When my wife pointed out that I looked like a caveman, I told her the story. “Yeah, right,” she replied, “stop coming to me with these stories. I’m just not in the mood.”

And yet, last night before going to bed, she told me super casually, “I just cancelled my hairstylist appointment. I decided to let my hair grow.”