I received the best compliment in my life a few days ago. A stranger approached me on the street, looked me right in the eye, and said, “I appreciate your beard.”
He didn’t say, “I like your beard.” He didn’t say that my beard was, “cool.” He said that he appreciated it. It was like he saw it as my gift to the world and felt compelled to acknowledge its receipt. Maybe he was just fucking with me, but it was pretty amazing.
In spite of this, though, I’ve made up my mind to shave it tonight, while my family sleeps.
My son, I think, deserves to know what I look like beneath it.
Furthermore, I’ve come to the realization that no one should have a beard long enough for a screaming toddler to swing from.
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Also, as much as I love the scraggly old thing, I just can’t imagine sitting by and watching as it begins to slowly overtake my stomach, pushing me into the realm of racist, sexist, homophobic celebrity duck hunters.
I never really liked beards.
The beard chooses the man.
It’s about 10-degrees outside, and I just spent the past hour outside, shoveling snow… Definitely picked the wrong fucking day to shave… I’m an idiot.
Are you sure they weren’t talking about your wife. I’ve always appreciated her. And I’ve always assumed she was your beard.
General advice that now increases in relevance: stay out of small-town Texas.
“All men caught on the streets of Shamrock without Donegals will be slammed in the Barefaced Jail to cool their heels while their beards grow to a thickness benefiting a true Irishman.”
My Dad grew a beard in ’76. I was four. When he shaved it I cried and wouldn’t talk to him for days. How did your son take it?
We don’t own beards. They’re gifts from God. We’re merely their caretakers.