The Beard

Every man, to truly feel like a man, has to check off a few things from an imaginary list. Some of them include getting your drivers license, having your first beer, and convincing that first girl to sleep with you. One that isn't so obvious is growing a beard. There is no real reason to do it. Most women find facial hair extremely unattractive, most men can't grow a decent beard, and it's downright obnoxious to sleep with one. But ask any man over 25 and I bet they have at least attempted to grow one. The duration might have only lasted a couple of missed shaves before they looked at themselves in the mirror and decided in the best interest of their love life to shave it, but they at least tried.

Now my "Man Checklist" wasn't as manly as it should have been: my mommy took me for my drivers test, my first drink was a kiwi strawberry wine cooler we stole from my friends parents, and I'm not even going to touch the last one. So it really shouldn't have surprised me that the beard wasn't going to be a huge success. I simply don't have the physical makeup to grow a good beard. I hate those men that can sneeze hard and have a 5 'o' clock shadow. The goal is to have to shave once a day, I'm currently at once every new moon.

I actually tried to grow a beard earlier. I had already gotten my job so I had no need to look presentable. I thought this was my last window to give it a go. After the first month I started to see some progress. But I had two glaring problems: 1. Even though my hair is brown my beard was blond, and hard to see and 2. My face and my genes had played a cruel joke on me. The higher power in charge of facial hair growth decided to leave a one inch landing strip on each of my cheeks where nothing grew. If you don't know what I'm talking about hopefully the picture below will shed some light.



After much deliberation I decided to shave my glorious beard into a chin strap. I can almost hear you laughing. And you should, I looked like a complete Douche with a capital D. So I gave up and shaved it off.

Now that I'm unemployed, and the job started with me trying to start a beard, I decided it should end with my trying to grow a beard. This one I call my "Unemployment Beard." This time it has been quite different. Now the my facial hair is red (next time I try this I am hoping for a different color, we'll see how long this lasts!). But the biggest change? I can grow hair on my cheeks! Woo! Granted most of it is albino white, but its a start. I finally feel like I hit puberty.

You'll be happy to know i refuse to resort back to the chin strap. I'm even sticking with the mustache against the direction of my closest advisers. You see my mustache refuses to connect with the rest of my beard. I feel like this is the one step that is holding it back from really meaning business.

Now if you are demanding a picture I refuse. But I will tell you the most common response. When people see me for the first time since I started this they usually say "Nice Beard!" followed by a sort of chortle. I decide to listen to the nice beard part.

In fact that other weekend I was back home talking to my Grandpa. He said "You got a little something going there." Never a good sign when you've been growing a beard for two months. But he is old so I respond "Yeah, I figured I would save some money on razors and grow a beard." He looked at me for a few seconds contemplating how to respond and finally settled on "Well.... everyone's gotta try it at least once I suppose..." Thanks Grandpa, hey at least I can check one more thing off my Man Bucket List. Only 57 more things to go!