I have been cultivating this beard I have since 1993. We went on a family vacation, I think, and I didn't shave. I had a beard before that, too, but it's so hard to remember that far back; and I'm too lazy to figure it out because I would have to go through the years I was at a couple law firms. Then I would have my beard resume -- and some partner in charge of hiring would say, as one did to me, that the beard has to go if you want the job. I could then pull out my beard resume and show her that the beard had no effect on my performance, and that, in reality, my performance as a trial lawyer was better when I had a beard as opposed to when I didn't have a beard.
Why did I grow the beard? I hated shaving every day. I hated shaving whenever I did it. Most of the time, I missed a spot or cut myself or had razor burn or shaved off some skin with the whiskers or just plain forgot to do it.
Now, every couple (or three or four or five) days, I pull out the Braun clippers with the 1/4th-inch guard and just trim my beard and what little hair decides to show up on my head and then jump in the shower. I find it tolerable, but barely.
Every other guy on the street I see has some kind of beard. Back in '93, very few men had beards. Well, Isaac Hayes had a beard, and he was cool. He had a beard when he wrote and sang the Oscar-winning "Theme From Shaft." Fucking cool. Isaac Hayes, that is. Well, Shaft was cool, too. I remember catching some heat from friends for wanting to go downtown to the Hippodrome to see the flick -- what with me being a white boy from the 'burbs and all. I went.
Getting back to the beard, I decided that I'd do a trim Thursday morning. The electric clipper -- I clicked it on, but it just hummed and didn't make that BRR-R-R-R-R noise that causes deafness. The clipper parts, the metal thingys that move and actually do the cutting weren't moving; so, I figured that they needed to be oiled and put a couple drops of oil on the metal thingies, but nothing happened except for the hum.
I took the little, plastic quarter-inch guard off and unscrewed the two screws holding the clipper parts together, which fell on the floor because the vibrating thing inside the clipper that makes the metal thingys move was now free to make the BRR-R-R-R-R sound and scare the crap out of me. I moved the switch to "off" and cleaned out the whiskers that had accumulated, blew on the vibrating thing to make sure it was clean, picked the metal thingys off the floor, put them back where they were supposed to be, screwed them down, and turned on the machine.
On reflection here, I should have unplugged the little bastard while I was working on it and oiling it, but I didn't. I didn't get shocked or anything like that. I just should have unplugged the electrical appliance, that's all.
After I turned it on, I ran the thing from my Adam's apple, which really isn't an apple on me because it doesn't stick out, to a spot just under my chin. That was an awful lot of whiskers that came off. In the mirror, I noticed a big, white track, like a runway, under my chin. Shit! Forgot the damn guard!
Panic rose within me -- this would look pretty funny at the wedding coming up. So, two choices ... (1) Continue on this course and hack the whole thing off, or (2) figure out something else. #2 was the better choice, as I saw it.
I figured that I would make the beard real, real short and blend in the runway area so it wasn't as noticeable -- and that worked out pretty well. And this morning, I notice that it's almost grown back. Under the circumstances, it pays to be hirsute.
Speaking of hair, I was watching Bull Durham. We all know, and if we all don't know, now we will, that Kevin Costner is a bald guy. I noticed that he has a hairy chest, too. Sean Connery falls into that category, too. The question arises, actually two questions arise, in my mind; and I figure that this is as good a place as any for a poll. If I get like 11 commenters who cast their votes, isn't that like the same number of people who are asked about stuff in exit polls at voting places with an error margin of plus-or-minus nine per cent, which is why we thought Al Gore was the winner in Florida (Well, that and the fact that they were asking people who thought they voted for Gore and really voted for Lamont Cranston or some other guy because the ballots were misleading ["Oh, you still believe that, Bill, you hippie freak?"]?
In any event, I pose two questions to my two faithful readers (and Stacey's minions): (1) In your experience, have you found that bald men have hairy chests? and (2) In your experience, have you found that men with hairy chests are bald?
Posted by Bill at August 4, 2003 08:49 AMfirst off: how come you get "readers," and i get "minions?"
1) yes
2) yes
and you know you chose option #2 because i would have KILLED you if you shaved it off!
Posted by: stacey at August 4, 2003 09:17 AM1) Yes
2) Yes
I think bald men are sexy. Very hairy chests don't appeal to me and neither do hairy backs (the gorilla-look). On the other side of the coin, men with no chest hair is a turn-off unless he has a washboard stomach and models for Vogue. No wonder I am single! *lol*
Posted by: Michelle at August 5, 2003 01:07 AM