No-Shave, November started last week. No-Shave is a program to help create cancer awareness among men by asking them to forgo shaving for an entire month. As many cancer patients lose their hair during cancer treatments, No-Shave is a visible reminder to others of just a small part of what those battling cancer are facing.
I will not be participating.
It isn’t because I think No-Shave, November is a bad idea – I think it’s a wonderful idea – it is simply because I think it is a bad idea for me.
You see, a couple of years ago, I decided to grow a beard.
To put this statement into some context, I should explain that because of my job I have, for the past 25 years been required to keep my hair cut short and my face clean shaven. My daily routine for years was to wake up at 4:15 AM, shower, shave, brush my teeth, grab my uniform and head out the door. The only exceptions were weekends and vacations.
When I retired two years ago, I decided that would be the perfect time to stop shaving and see what happened. I had never had more than a couple weeks of vacation at one time to try to grow a beard and now, suddenly I had all the time in the world. The first thing I did was turn off the alarm clock. I decided to sleep late and skip my morning routine completely. After a few days, my wife and the kids begged me to start showering and brushing my teeth again and I graciously relented.
I also promised them I would start putting on clothes before going outside. After 25 years of wearing uniforms, the only things I had in my closet were underwear and black socks, and apparently that is insufficient covering while picking up the newspaper and saying hello to the neighbors.
But, the shaving? Nope. All done.
My first week went just about as I had expected. I looked like an adolescent boy who had refused to shave off the peach fuzz from his upper lip because he thought it made him look old enough to buy beer without getting carded. Although I actually had no difficulty buying alcohol that week, I don’t think it was due to the facial hair.
The second week was not much better. I still looked like I had fallen down and gotten dirt smudged on my chin and upper lip. On a couple of occasions, I caught my wife looking at me out of the corner of her eye and shaking her head in disappointment. I considered this to be an improvement. Usually when she is shaking her head at me it is due to something I have done, rather than simply the way I look.
It was during the third week that I began to see real progress. I had managed to sprout patches of blond and gray hair on my chin, on the sides of my face, and on one side of my upper lip. I was starting to come to the conclusion that this wasn’t going to be a good look for me. I looked like a stray dog with a serious case of mange. And like that stray dog, I noticed that I was beginning to frighten children and make grown adults cross the street to avoid walking too close to me.
Friends and family also started to realize that something was different about me. They would say things like, “Oh, I see what you’re doing, here.” And, “It’s not really working, is it?” True, they weren’t being very encouraging, but at least they were noticing.
My wife was clearly embarrassed by me. She denied it whenever I asked her about it, but I could tell. It was little things like when we would go shopping she would find excuses to stay at least two aisles ahead of me. Or, if we were out on a walk, she would duck behind trees whenever a car drove by.
I lasted another week out of sheer stubbornness. I kept telling myself that if I could just go for one month, all the bare spots would miraculously fill in and I would end up with a glorious cloud of facial hair. However, when the month was over, I continued to look like I had recently endured an unhealthy dose of radiation around the face and neck.
One night, I woke up and found my wife standing in the bathroom holding one of my disposable razors. I asked her what she was doing, and she dropped the razor, looked around and said, “Where am I? Oh, dear, I must have been sleep walking.” Then she looked at me with an expression of great sadness and went back to bed.
That was the final straw. I decided one month of looking like I belonged in a television commercial with Sarah McLachlan singing sad songs in the background was enough. It was time to admit the experiment was an utter failure. The next morning, I shaved it all off.
It took about eight seconds.
Although, the whole beard ordeal was generally an unpleasant experience, and something I would just as soon forget had ever happened, there was one unexpected, positive outcome for me. Ever since that fiasco, I have discovered if I want to do something stupid or embarrassing that I know my wife will not like, I have a get-out-of-jail free card.
It goes something like this:
“Honey, I think I’m going to jog around the neighborhood in my underwear.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Put some clothes on. We don’t need the police coming over to the house again this week.”
“Ok. I guess I can just stay home and try to grow a beard.”
(Quiet pause) “Say hello to the Johnsons while you’re out running.”