Iowa State, I haven’t been looking forward to writing this column. It is with heavy heart I type these words, for this is last time I have the pleasure of writing my opinion in the Iowa State Daily. Well, not exactly, because my editor, in order to subvert my withdrawal symptoms, has let me do a Year in Review for the Finals Week edition out next week.

This is to be a year in review and so consequently I’ll be doing my best to report accurately and fairly the events of the past academic year. Ha ha! I am joking of course, actually it will be sophomoric and pointless.

We have had some fun, Iowa State, and I’d like to thank all of you that have said such nice things to me. Well, most of you. Not everybody has been so kind in their assessments of my column, and that is what I’d like to address in my final grace of the Daily pages.

There was a woman named Carolyn Sigsbey who left online feedback all the way from Ohio to say she was none too pleased with a column I wrote about Toby Keith. Carolyn lambasted my column because she was a proudly self-proclaimed “Toby Warrior,” which I can only assume is the country music analogue to a “Master P Soldier.” Then Carolyn aimed below the belt.

She ripped into my hair.

Oh snap. Carolyn alluded to the fact that my “golden curls” made me look like Shirley Temple and questioned my sexual preference. Well, this has been keeping me up at night, so I’ve decided to wave the metaphorical white flag and cut my hair into a style that proud Toby Warriors like Carolyn can appreciate.

Clearly, I am talking about a mullet.

Before you go judging such an awesome display of plumage, allow me to defend the hairstyle. Mullets are so bad, they’re good, not unlike the movie “Predator” (“Get tooda Choppah!”) and Ace of Base.

Mullets are awesome, but how did they get that way? I’ll tell you how: a pathetic attempt to look like Billy Badass, combined with appreciation for the cult classic genre, placed in a nation where hockey and NASCAR somehow peacefully coexisted for a time, came together in an odd, immensely powerful chemical reaction that occurred over several Web sites.

Now we have the gift of mullets and you have something to look for during a visit to truck stops or KFC’s Sunday buffet. Working with me are doctors Jason York, John Isaccs, and Owen Reese, three board-certified mulletologists who have all earned their Ph. D.s in the field of having a skank-ass haircut at one time.

While Drs. York and Reese are in favor of a “skullet”, which is a bald people mullet, and Dr. Isaccs is a proponent of the “Camaro Cut” (go check out mulletsgalore.com) I have concluded the best way to sate Ms. Sigsbey is the mullet with lines shaved in the side. Surely Carolyn’s heart will skip several beats at the sight of Billy Ray Cyrus reborn.

The first question people usually have is “Are you completely serious?” The answer to that is yes, I am completely serious. I haven’t cut my hair since October 2003 and, Iowa State, you are going to see something really special. After my last final in Embryology (Zoology 433 — great class, by the way) I’m going to cut it. If you’re on Welch Avenue on Wednesday night (hell, probably all day Thursday, too) and you see what appears to be a tribute A.C. Slater, rest assured it is only my peace offering to Carolyn Sigsbey of Ohio.

When people say goodbye, they often try to leave you with some words to live by or at least remember them by, so I will leave you with this, what I believe to be an original Jon Crosbie quote:

Don’t take yourself too seriously, for if you do, nobody else will.

That’s all I got, Iowa State. I’m out …