A Comb Is Like a Toothbrush

One thing I've never understood— and I mean just absolutely never understood— is people who will blithely ask to borrow your comb.

As in, they want to borrow your comb, to comb their hair.

I'm sorry, but to me, a comb is like a toothbrush. Would you ask to borrow someone else's toothbrush, to brush your teeth? Would you want to lend your toothbrush to someone else, and then stick it in your mouth again, after it's got their saliva and their plaque and their germs on it?

Likewise, would you want to use your comb again, after it's got someone else's dandruff and someone else's hair grease (and maybe even someone else's head lice) on it??!

I dunno, I just do not understand people who ask to borrow my comb. I remember some years back I worked in a place along with this fellow who was basically the nicest guy in the world. He looked sort of rough— an ex-biker, but really a good fellow. Still, he looked rough. He had the most awful hair: wavy, steel-grey hair, dandruff-ridden, greasy to the point of being stiff. It looked like he never washed his hair. And I will never forget the day he asked me, at work, if I had a comb he could borrow.

I lied through my teeth and told him that I didn't have a comb. Then I had to remember, for the rest of the day, not to forget and idly take my comb out of my pocket to comb my hair.

Is it a certain personality type? Or a certain cultural background? Or what? I mean, I simply don't understand what's driving someone who, without a second thought, would ask to borrow my comb.