I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it. My beard caused a baby to cry.
The other day I visited my cousin and her beautiful 10-month-old twin girls. Upon seeing me with my strange scruffy facial hair, one of the babies immediately narrowed her eyes, scrunched up her face and began bawling at the top of her lungs. “Oh crap,” I thought. Her twin stared at her, then at me, and clapped her hands gleefully. I felt horrible. Is making a baby cry because of your beard on the same level as stealing candy from a baby? I hope not.
The propensity to make infants cry is just one of the many trials and tribulations that a typical bearded fellow must go through. It’s true, beards are amazing — but let me tell you, it takes a real man to grow a beard.
The first couple weeks of beard-growing are the worst. The scruff may look all cool and hipsterish, but it itches like a healthy dose of itching powder. The urge to whip out a razor and shaving cream and send the beard to an untimely demise is sometimes overpowering. Stay strong. Power through it. Even if your girlfriend/boyfriend/lover/great-great uncle tells you that it looks like a chipmunk climbed up your neck and died on your face, ignore them.
I recall my first encounter trying to grow a beard. I was 13. And I was supremely disappointed that all I could manage was peach fuzz above my upper lip.
And so, last summer, after sporting a goatee and sideburns, I finally made up my mind to grow whiskers. After a lot of hard work, I finally managed to grow a semi-decent beard.
In a month or so (or several days if you’re Sean Connery), you’ll have yourself a decent beard. But the trials of beard maintenance continue. Every time you blow your nose. Every time you eat spaghetti. Every time you drive past a swarm of African killer bees and one of them gets caught in the midst of your beard and starts wigging out. You realize it’s a dangerous world out there.
You’ve also got to take into consideration the creepiness factor. I’ve been told by numerous guys that my beard looks “awesome” or “sweet.” And I’ve been told by numerous girls that my facial hair looks “downright creepy” and “like a stalker.” Be warned. For some reason, many women-folk aren’t too keen on facial hair.
A couple weeks ago, when I was taking a late-night constitutional down the sidewalk, a young woman was walking toward me. When she was 20 paces away, I smiled good-naturedly, but she took one look at my beard and quickly bolted for the opposite sidewalk. I think she was prepared to knife me with her keys. All because of a harmless beard.
If you can navigate the hairy situations associated with beard-wearing, the benefits far outweigh the close shaves:
• Life is so much better when every month is No-Shave-November. Forget about stupid shaving gels and those annoying Gillette commercials.
• It’s amazing how comfortable beards are. No reason to wear a scarf or one of those sissy neck warmers when you’ve got yourself a fine beard to brave the blood-curdling Baltic winds.
• Are you a fugitive, an illegal immigrant or merely trying to avoid your ex-girlfriend? Grow a beard. Soon even your own mother won’t recognize you.
• Beards are tame. Why have a dog or a cat when you have your own scruff to pat and stroke and take on long walks? It doesn’t bite or scratch at the door or take a crap on your favorite Led Zeppelin album while you’re in the shower, causing the vinyl to never play the same again.
• Make a fashion statement. It’s all the rave with those homeless guys that hang out around the bus station downtown. Yep, they know that beards are coming back into style.
The great William Shakespeare once wrote, “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.” Most great men in history sported impressive beards — Abraham Lincoln, Jesus, Gandalf, the list goes on.
Any shmuck can grow a pair of sideburns or a wispy goatee. Be one of the greats.
And so I say: Men of the world (and certain women, I guess) unite, cast your inhibitions aside, throw off your shackles of quiet, suburban American life that tell you to shave your face, and instead bask in the glory of cultivating a garden of facial hair into what eventually can only be referred to as an awesome beard.
My beard and I wish you the best of luck in all of your beard-growing exploits.
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