So, the beard. Yeah, again.
I know. It’s possible that literary horse is dead and I should quit beating it. It’s just that every year about this time, just as the leaves start to turn and there’s a certain chill in the air, I step out into the cool of my backyard and say to myself, “Wow, I’m really glad we don’t have a lot of trees back here so I don’t have to rake any leaves.”
And then I go back inside and decide not to shave.
OK, so perhaps the decision isn’t made quite that lightly. Well, then again, maybe it is. I mean, as I’ve said before, growing a beard is basically done by doing nothing at all. And doing nothing at all is what I do best.
So that’s what I’m doing. Or, not doing. Again.
Of course there’s more to it than that. A beard is both an annual acknowledgement of the changing of the season and a manifestation of the quest for improvement and, well, growth.
It’s fall, so in advance of the winter, trappers, hunters and outdoorsmen of all persuasions start to grow a beard to help keep warm in the frigid months ahead.
And since I am exactly none of those things and expect to be cold for about the amount of time it takes me to make it from my car to my office in the morning and vice versa in the afternoon, growing a beard makes no sense at all.
By the way, it doesn’t make much sense for them, either, since beards tend to get wet and be kind of cold and clammy. But … whatever.
So if there’s no actual seasonal dictate that drives me, what exactly am I thinking? About the beard this time, because, with me “what were you thinking?” is kind of a standing question. Which is often followed by a request to identify how many fingers are being held up.
Just an off-the-subject note here: Any answer greater than five probably isn’t going to be correct. And responses like “I’m going to ballpark it at about three, give or take” earns you a trip to the ER.
But I digress …
There’s just certain restlessness, a certain need for change that inhabits the soul of American men. It can manifest itself in lots of ways, like buying motorcycles you have no idea how to ride or expanding westward and taking land from indigenous peoples. So, in light of those choices, perhaps facial hair is a slightly lesser evil.
Which is an easy thing to say on Day Four of the Great Annual Beard-Growing Project. On Day 10, reality starts to set in. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing the same way time and time again and expecting different results. Or, perhaps for it not to itch this time.
Now, since this isn’t my first beard rodeo (they actually have those in Arizona. No, they don’t. But considering the other odd things they do have, you’d have believed me.) I know that, at some point, little coarse hairs all over relatively sensitive skin won’t feel all that great.
This time, however, I’ve decided to beat the itch with science. Or at least research.
It seems Al Gore invented the Internet for just such a situation. Or perhaps, exactly for this situation (yes, that’s correct: the Web and all its attendant elements were invented so we could figure out how to make facial hair not itch). So, a relatively quick search proves … well … I don’t really know that much about how to search, which means it requires a much longer search to find the best answer Google can provide.
Question: How do you keep facial hair from itching? Top answer: Shave it off.
Again, back to that search drawing board …
Seems the next best answer requires a trip to the drug store for beard softening shampoo, which is followed by something call “beard oil” and then the purchase of some kind of an odd electric trimmer-looking deal that looks suspiciously like you’d use it to shear sheep or shave off someone’s eyebrow after they passed out. I mean, hypothetically, of course.
Which means your annual flight of facial hair fancy is about as expensive and high maintenance as a 2-year-old. And easily as cranky. Which also explains why, like fall itself, the beard isn’t going to last.
I wonder how hard it would be to learn to ride a motorcycle?
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Gary Smith is a recovering journalist living in Rogers.