October 27, 2003
a tale of three whiskersPosted by Bryan
i'm not a hircute hirsute man.
i've never attempted to grow a moustache, for if i did, people would ask if i'd like a hanky to wipe the chocolate milk off my upper lip. often, i've remarked that any attempts to grow a beard would leave me looking somewhat like this:
so, i've shaved pretty much every day since i was fifteen. not out of necessity, but more out of a mixture of hopeful ambition, and sad resignation. prior to that, shaving was a non-issue. now, i will miss a day if i'm homebound and it brings little consequence. but if i go three days, even my daughter will ask me to go take care of the annoying, erratic, mange-like growth on my face.
now, not being hairy has its advantages. Should i ever become musclebound and need to enter a competetion requiring bare-chested muscle-flexing, i can be sans follicles in moments. i can take care of my daily facial hair removal in about one minute. and my five o clock shadow doesn't arrive until five a.m. the next morning, which is pretty close to when i'm taking care of that sort of thing, so it all works out pretty well.
i'm pretty comfortable in my own proverbial lightly-haired skin, such as it is. so you can imagine my dismay when i noticed the recent emergence of three troublesome whiskers. yes, i do confess that it is sad and pathetic that i would notice the emergence of three new whiskers, but some of us aren't grizzly adams, thank you very much. the reason why i noticed these three whiskers is because of the unusual location of each of these whiskers. the first (which is actually the second to be discovered, but the first for dramatic purposes, if the revelation of three whiskers can accurately be described as 'dramatic') is a cheekbound hair that poked through high on my right profile, just below the cheekbone, approximately at the gumline. heretofore, pretty much all of my facial hair had neatly and cooperatively emerged along an organized area of my lower jawbone, where it traced back to the hinge of my claptrap and converged nicely with what would be muttonchops if i ever had the time and total lack of couthe to grow out such behemoths.
So this one "lone wolf" whisker creates a myriad of problems for me. Now, I'll need to have an entirely new shaving pattern. I'll have to "go high" for one stinking whisker. And the reality is, I'll often forget about it because it's the only one there and i've never been there before. so, the result will be I will have a neatly shaved face, except for this one six inch whisker sprouting out of the side of my face like poor Jack's bean stalk. If you climb up my follicular stalk, you'll eventually get to the castle of a giant victor kiam who has been lulled to sleep by the dulcitones of a softly humming solid gold remington electric razor. because of my certain negligence to this one whisker, i'll be the guy in the office (or neighborhood, or church, or wherever i happen to be) with that one facial feature that draws the awkward attention of anyone who comes into its presence. it will derail thoughts. it will overtake agendas. i will be known as "the whisker" and i will be feared and loathed by all who encounter its hideous freakish growth (this reminds me -- i better go check and see if this thing is sprouting out of a mole, the only thing that could make it worse than it already is).
the second whisker is no less bothersome, although it is much less noticeable. you see this one is sprouting from the very corner of my mouth, right next to where my lips converge to a common point of closure on the left. not on my lips, mind you, for that would be so nasty as to require that i actually go get a laser follicle removal procedure done for the sake of one hair. but it is just next to that point.
so, as you can tell from this photo,* that a whisker in such a locale is not a favorable situation. i am repeatedly confusing it for a morsel or crumb of food left over from a previous meal. repeated attempts to scoop it into my mouth with my tongue fail, for obvious reasons. subconsciously trying to "deal with it," without really thinking about it, i then rub, scratch, and pick at it -- not making the connection that it's my lipwhisker, but instead trying to wrack my brain thinking when i last ate plaster of paris that had adhered to my face. then i go to the restroom to scrub it off with sand paper if necessary, when upon seeing it in the mirror, i remember. so i make a mental note to shave it the next morning, which i promptly forget and do not remember the next morning, and repeat the process again the following day. this has been known to go on for an entire week, before i am so agitated by the thing (and because its nearly long enough to be able to floss with it) that i come home from work, fire up the weed whacker, and give it the rough and tumble.
the final follicle in this bermuda triangle of facial hair encompassing my face, is a rebellious James Dean of whisker that has burst forth mid neck. it's not far enough forward to be a true whisker and accordingly in the path of my daily razor swath, nor is it far enough back to be in my daily combing pattern as a hair on my head. The unfortunate result looks like the inner stick figure in me has decided to poke his left arm out of my neck and give a steady wave to all passers-by. The only saving grace for this bad boy is that kelli tends to notice it, and is quick to pluck it between two fingers and painfully extract it with a quick yank. when this occurs, i become profoundly aware that this particular hair is rooted in my spinal column and is threaded through every neuron between its points of origin and emergence.
there will be a day when i no longer care about my crazy facial hair. i'll be old, senile, and the triplets will likely have entire descendants of offspring, offshooting in every direction from my ears, the bulb of my nose, from odd angles from my eybrows, and who knows where else. that day has not yet arrived. so for now, i'll simply contemplate buying an additional disposable razor, and packing it in my briefcase, prepared for an emergency lip whisker razing.
*note: this is not my face. i have only slightly more hair than this man, who oddly goes by the name "rachel."