Jul 06, 2013 12:44
I've got three options. (I) I am clean shaven, which causes people to card me for R rated movies at an age where a kid on StarCraft (whose mother will not allow him to tell me how old he is) marvels at how 'old' I am. (II) I have half a week worth of stubble, which is just the right amount of prickly to piss off my wife. (III) I have at least a week's worth of stubble, which has become fluffy enough to placate my wife but makes me look either like a homeless man or a manic genius, depending on whether I am currently in a college campus.
In senior year of high school, I had a friend who shaved daily and had a 5-o-clock shadow daily as well. I envied him at the time as I was tired of being carded for PG-13 movies. I did not envy the bald spot his testosterone was simultaneously growing, but I only brought the first part up with him. He told me I would be less jealous if I knew what a pain in the ass it was to have the facial hair when you didn't want it along with the times when it was convenient. I'm not sure I will ever arrive at a biology where I grow a 5-o-clock shadow by 5-o-clock on the same day that I shaved, so I guess I will forever have to take him at his word for it.
But truly, my golden years of facial hair are behind me. The most glorious months for facial hair I ever had was my final semester at Florida. A friend of mine, for reasons I will never fathom, proposed a beard growing contest. He was one of those guys who could grow a true 5-o-clock shadow, and wanted to put money on it. It would have been a great contest among several of my friends, but they either refused to grow a beard for more than a day or refused to cut off their current beard to begin the contest. So he was left with just me to compete with. At the time I couldn't grow a shadow of a beard by 5-o-clock on any day of the month following my most recent shave, so there was no chance in hell I would put money on it. But he really wanted to make this bet, so he would essentially let me set whatever rules I wanted. I spent half an hour thinking of just the right conditions, and then we shook hands. He must have been really desperate to make any kind of beard-growing-bet, because I essentially turned his strength against him.
The bet was simple. The loser was the first person to trim in any way their facial hair. That loser then had to shave ALL of the hair off their head.
Like I said, I couldn't grow a shadow to save my life. I was at this sweet spot where hair did come in, but it was all blonde baby hair. Soft stuff. Grows very slowly. Even after two weeks you had to stand within 5 feet of me to see it. Hell, by the end of the bet (it lasted for several months), you still couldn't see it on my face until you were close enough to talk to me.
My competitor, on the other hand, was having trouble. His mustache began getting into his mouth as he ate. It was pretty funny. He asked for special permission to trim just that part of his hair, as this bet was more about vanity than disgusting side-effects. But I said no, because I wanted the bet to end that much faster (and I sure as hell wasn't going to lose). The truth is, the bet was getting to me too. My hair was coming in patchy. And although this weird blonde arm hair that was now on my face grew slowly, after several months it had acquired some length. This patchy felt on my face grew a little on my sideburns and a lot right under my chin. I looked like a goat. And I got called a goat. First by my competitor as trash-talk, but other friends found it so accurate that this temporarily replaced 'Nasty Yancey.' So I told him to suck it up, and that's how I won.