...And Another One Gone, Another Beard Bites The Dust

I'd been growing the beard for a bit over a year. My son Jonathan had grown a full beard a couple of years ago so I decided that I'd give it another try myself. I grew my first beard when I was about 18 or 19. Over the years I'd grown facial hair of various sorts, kept it awhile, then shaved it off again. This time around my motivation was in getting rid of my white chin. There's a decent sprinkling of grey hair over my entire head, but more in the beard. The chin was just about all white.

"Safety razors", disposeable or otherwise, aren't really a great choice for shaving a beard. Anything more than a two day growth of stubble and the hairs get too long. They clog up the razor. With something like the classic Gilette style razor you can open it up and flush out the whiskers under running water, or even just by swishing it around in a sink full of water, but there's no way to open a disposeable. Monkette perched herself on the shower curtain rod to observe the occasion. (Upper right in the lower photo.) I started by trimming the hairs as close as possible with scissors, which did help, but the razor still got thoroughly clogged at least a dozen times. Finally I was done, a nice smooth face, no white chin. I cleaned up the mess in the sink so the drain wouldn't get clogged, slapped on a bit of cologne, and headed out.

All the cute coeds and baristas at Starbucks told me how much younger I look without the beard, immediately followed by telling me that I was still too old to date them. At least Monkette still loves me.