I get to class early and sit down. I see a small, about 5’7” figure approach me. This figure is foreign to me. I don’t recognize it.

As it gets closer I start to make out some facial features.

It’s him, it’s Tyler VanAvery.

But it is not THE Tyler I know.

Something is missing. Some monumental part of him is no longer with us. It is gone and it isn’t coming back.

I shed a single tear . . . for the flow.

I am not the only one shedding tears for his luscious locks. His godly lettuce.

Nay, Tyler’s tears tremble down the terrace of his cheekbones as well.

“I . . . I . . . ,” Tyler can barely get the words out. “ I have never felt so alone in my life.”

The depths of this grief is so deep, it has even traveled to our rivals at Pinkerton. In fact, even they are so devastated, they can barely muster a response.

“At first I was sad, then the more I thought about it, I was devastated,” said Pinkerton senior Dalton Roy, who is one of Tyler’s good friends. “I shed many tears realizing he no longer had lettuce.”

People everywhere are outraged. This raises the question… why? Why would the boy rid himself of his gorgeous mane?

“The reason I cut my gorgeous locks,” Tyler said, “was because it might have pleased most people, but the people that cared the most, were not pleased.”

You have to be touched that the man would chop off what is most likely the best part of him and just leave it on the floor for the ones he loves, but you must also be infuriated that they would ask him to do such a thing in the first place.

I mean, seriously, the lad looked like a lion. With his flow, this undersized child was able to feel like the king of the jungle. Why would anybody take that from him?

This lion of lions did it for love.

“He looked gross,” said Tyler’s girlfriend junior Alyssa Anderson. “Now at least he looks clean.”

But is “clean” more important than “cool”?

Since when do we value cleanliness over ‘the drip”?

I must end this now as the tears are blinding me from writing and are making my keyboard soggy.