Every weekend, I look outside through my binoculars and see a stream of people trying to sneak onto Old Campus — obviously completing a “Walk of Shame.” I used to think that the reason they were walking with their hands over their heads was because they felt extremely guilty. It turns out they just knew Iwas watching them. People don’t like voyeurs.

But before I realized this, I thought they hid because of intense feelings of shame, and this shame confused me. If I had slept in another bed I would walk with my head held high and with a slight bounce in my step.

Over time, I’ve learned that if I did this, I would be making two mistakes. First, a guy should never walk in a bouncy manner. Luckily, I cannot bounce. One voyeur victim made sure of that. Second, I should be wearing a hat. Why a hat you ask? Let me explain.

In keeping with the fashion theme of this week’s scene, in this column I’d like to discuss the most common fashion mistake I see: people forgetting they have hair (on their head). And I don’t mean elderly professor-types who may have left their hair on some teaching assistant’s bedside table. I mean young, lustrous, college-student hair, attached to young college-student heads often touched by elderly professor-types. Hair is possibly the most important accessory you will ever own, grow, cut or lose, and when walking back from another’s room, it should not be the cause of your shame. If anything, you should be ashamed of your Yale-like performance the previous night.

Naturally, the night before your “Walk” you spent hours crafting the perfect look for yourself to pave the way for your evening of debauchery. If luck is with you and you don’t spill anything on yourself, Imean anything, the next morning you are wearing the same outfit. The shameful thing is the way your hair looks after a night of wild… well, a wild night.

If you don’t believe that hair is important, pick up a facebook. Most of the ugly people decided to submit a passport photo instead of opting for the replacement Yale “Y.” For the pictures you decide to look at, you can’t see anything anyone is wearing; they are all neck up. So what do you look at? Well first, you look at someone’s name. If you see a guy named Aloysius Rosenbaumbergtaum-Money, they probably aren’t going to the screw and haven’t had a date since the girl they kissed dancing Snowball at a bar mitzvah. It’s not his fault, blame his parents.

But if Aloysius has bad hair, it is his fault. You laugh, but you too could be Aloysius. If you haven’t changed haircuts since second grade and you still have hair parted down the middle, the bowl cut, the Jennifer Aniston, or, god forbid, a rat-tail, you have no one but yourself to blame. A hairstyle can and should be changed as often as the color of the Nalgene bottle you mistakenly carry around as a beverage accessory. The only difference is that people are more likely to talk about your haircut behind your back than they are to discuss how your neon yellow plastic tote doesn’t match your Diesel jeans. (Because really, what can you even say about that outfit?)

Look at it this way. Your hair is like a window into your soul.

OK, so that may not be true, but still. The beehive is a prime example: animal kingdom meets portable storage device. Bad hairstyle, period. But if you were to “cultivate” a beehive, no one would ever say anything mean to you about it, unless you had really, really good friends. The same thing is true about that really awful pair of orange suede pants you have hiding in your closet that you like to put on when you have a bad day to make yourself feel oh-so-special. Cut them up, and while the scissors are out, cut the beehive too. Maybe you’ll find a midget.

The moral of the story is that you can dress like an Abercrombie model, but if you allow your hair to take on a life of its own, you might as well be mannequin with a design flaw. That only works in “Sex and the City.”

All I am saying is that your hair is there for life. Don’t ignore it. Touch it. Let others touch it. Maybe wash it. Get a lice check every once in a while. They can be very arousing. And do not spoil your hair with expensive hair-care products and certainly don’t name it or assign it a personality. That’s weird and it makes it harder to cut.

Steven Abramowitz is a freshman in Pierson.