It's Me or the Beard!

The men in my family are not an inherently hirsute bunch of people. My younger brother continues to struggle, at twenty-four, with the ability to produce more than a mere crustache above his upper lip and even that takes several weeks. Thus, he continues to be mistaken for a prepubescent youth at more frequent intervals that he would probably like. While my father did sport a decently well-developed mustache throughout my early years, I believe I was born after its inception and thus I cannot verify how long it took for that facial feature to reach its fullest state. Not to dig too deeply into my own psychosis, but perhaps due to a desire to live life on the edge or at least branch out from the men in my family, I chose to marry a man who claims to have begun shaving in late elementary school. Although my husband is prone to the occasionally, or frequent, exaggeration, I do believe there is a shred of credibility in this assertion.

It seems that my darling husband blossomed well before others his age stopped playing with G.I. Joes. According to lore, he also reached his current height and relative weight by middle school. No doubt this frightened off many a young lady whom he hoped to pursue or even more so their fathers who didn’t want a man-child taking their daughters to the eighth grade dance.

Nevertheless, since my significant other has been sporting a five o’clock shadow at about nine in the morning for many, many years, I can understand why shaving is a laborious and arduous task in which he does not necessarily want to engage everyday. Thus, I have been accustomed to the occasional goatee or beard during our relationship. Usually though, he needs to spruce up his appearance or simply gets bored with the facial overgrowth and shaves it off in a reasonable period of time. Unfortunately, this is apparently no longer the situation. My husband is now proclaiming, with great sincerity, that he is preparing to cultivate a beard well longer than socially acceptable standards for all those who are not members of ZZ Top or the Hell’s Angels.

Currently, I think my husband resembles Yukon Cornelius from the claymation version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. His macho mask is clumpy and the Benetton of beards, displaying an array of colors from blond to red, lengths that vary from mere wisps to actual tresses, and textures that range from brillo pad to sandpaper. Supposedly the beard growth is in homage to his lacrosse team and will not be shaved until they win ten games. Not to espouse a negative attitude towards the team, but up until now, they have only managed to defeat one team in six years of existence. If he’s waiting for them to win ten games, he’s going to look more like Methuselah or the unabomber before it is time for a trim. Certainly, you can understand my concern. I realize that everyone has a right to adorn their body, whether in clothing or facial hair, as they so choose; however, when it looks like I’m out to dinner with a member of the witness protection program or someone who just needs a hot meal, I think I am entitled to voice my opinion.

Due to the overgrowth of his facial forest, I have tried a variety of tactics to coerce my beloved into abandoning this pursuit. First, I appealed to his fear of aging by pointing out the gray hairs that were sprouting from his follicular fleece. I explained that these hairs added at least fifteen years to his already overly mature visage. If he already felt like a pervert every time we went out and I got carded and he didn’t, this beard was definitely not going to make that issue go away. However, this was not enough of a reason to warrant removing the wiry whiskers.

Next, I employed the fright factor by asserting that bugs and other insects could lay larvae in his chin cloak. One day, I warned, he would wake up to find spiders crawling all over his face and into all of his orifices after they burst the egg sacks that were embedded in his beard. Knowing his irrational and extreme fear of bugs, I thought that surely this would dissuade him. Even after citing Internet evidence of the veracity of my statements, he still held firm on his quest for facial fur.

My final tactic involved appealing to his competitive coaching side. I fruitlessly hoped to convince my husband that he would have a hard time recruiting lacrosse players when he looked like every cult leader that made it onto the nightly news. Who was going to trust their children to him when he looked like Charles Manson or “Father” David Berg from the Children of God cult in L.A. in the late sixties? Would they really want a sip of what he was offering? I didn’t think so.

Unfortunately, none of my sound reasoning could shake my spouse’s conviction that beards are “cool”. When asked to cite “cool” men with beards, those that are habitual drug users were not permitted on the list, he weakly mentioned Bob Villa, Al (from Tool Time) Boreland, and the embodiment of sanity and citizenship, Joaquin Phoenix. The last time I checked, and I am no beacon of coolness myself, flannel shirts and psychosis were not the epitome of hip and trendy.

As the beard continues to grow, I have trouble overcoming some of my own misgivings and fears. Personally, I see it becoming a bacteria bush as germs from sneezes and coughs become trapped in his snot net, much the way cotton pieces get stuck on watch bands or dryer trays. I anticipate more frequent colds and flues developing as a result of my husbands’ latest endeavor to over-masculate himself. Plus, the thought of what might be caught in his facial wool is quite a deterrent when it comes to kissing or any other intimate gesture. Already I’ve caught him using it as a personal snack shack and picking crumbs out from earlier meals. I am almost afraid of what we will find in there in a few months if his pursuit of a jowl jacket continues. Therefore, if you see my husband around or talk to him on the phone and wish to reiterate any of my previously made points, without directly pointing the finger at me, I would greatly appreciate your assistance.

Fashion Faux Pas or Casually Comfortable?

Like many women, my husband owns more t-shirts than Imelda Marcos owns shoes. Unfortunately, it’s not only t-shirts that he owns in abundant supply, but an entire array of clothing that falls under the category of “I don’t want to be seen out in public with my husband wearing this.” I am talking about sweatshirts, including one with a built in front pouch for a beer can, like a kangaroo carrying its joey, sweatpants from every team he’s ever played on or coached, and some seriously color blind sport coat selections. While I have weathered the storm of the Goodwill t-shirts with holes in the armpits ready to disintegrate at the touch, and my husband has graduated to single-handedly keeping the Under Armor company in business, I still don’t feel as though we’ve made a whole lot of attire advancement in our seven years together.

Let me preface this article with the fact that I grew up in a household where you weren’t allowed to wear anything less than khakis on an airplane. While I did admire from afar those comfortable travelers in pajama bottoms, I felt a bit of dignity that I was dressed to a higher standard. This is not to say that my husband was not raised with similar standards, but there were just certain fashion expectations ingrained into me at an early age for various events and as a result I have developed some hang ups in this area that he did not. Convincing my husband about these unwritten clothing codes has not been so easy though. Comfort reigns supreme in his world and anything with buttons or zippers is usually shunned at all costs. If I’m lucky, a fancy night on the town might call for a hooded sweatshirt not turned inside out or a solid colored t-shirt.

Over the years, I have discovered that my husband has developed his own theories and principals about bedecking his body. Apparently once you become a college athletic coach, you are expected to look like one at every waking minute. Heaven forbid the man at the post office or the server at the nice Italian restaurant should coincidentally have a child seeking a scholarship to your college in your particular sport and you are caught unaware. He can’t take a chance at letting that one game changing recruit pass him by.

While the mafia might have a uniform of nylon tracksuits, pasta, and cannolis, my husband has matching colored sweat ensembles, a bottle of Gatorade, and a baseball cap. Never mind the fact that most people over the age of six have dismissed the practice of wearing the same color sweatpants and sweatshirt for fear of looking like a large bruise in blue or a gigantic grape in purple; my husband is clearly a man dedicated to his work and has thrown fashion sense to the wind in support of his cause.

My husband and I have also debated continuously over the years about the colors olive green and brown. While I believe I am able to discern between the two fairly accurately, there remains virtually no difference between the hues in my husband’s eyes and I’m pretty sure that he would fight me with his dying breath on this issue. As a result, when forced to wear adult clothes, he has concocted some rather unique outfits based on his inability to tell the two colors apart. While I might make my sentiments known about the eyesore that these garish garments create, I usually lose and am forced to ask for a table in the back, darkest part of a restaurant or walk a few steps ahead to avoid looking as if being stalked by someone from the asylum.

Then there is the issue of the outlet mall. For someone who throws money around on concert tickets and anything related to the Black Crowes like my husband does, that man loves a sale. I am a complete proponent of clearance items and am known for my miserly tendencies. However, I am of the ideology that just because it’s on sale, does not mean you have to buy it. Some clothing makes it to the sale rack for a legitimate reason: no one else will pay to wear it. My husband however is an outlet store’s dream as he is more than happy to take those less than hot ticket items off of their hands. Take the incident of the Christmas shorts, which I was too late to stop him from purchasing. If only I’d arrived at the Polo outlet five minutes sooner, I could have prevented the abomination that were the elf green and cardinal red khaki shorts. As I made rude comments about these hideous items, the less than perky salesman ringing up my husband glowered at me from behind the counter as if to say, “Please let him take these out of our store. We can’t give these shorts away.” Nevertheless, my husband vehemently extolled the many virtues of these garments and the myriad of uses they would fulfill. Needless to say, the first outing of the green shorts, the mildly less grotesque of the two pairs, drew far from rave reviews from others. On the plus side, the cherry red shorts have yet to have their public debut. Whether this resulted from the prior panning of the green shorts or simply his own realization that nothing he owned could possibly compliment this appalling acquisition, I am incredibly grateful.

To be fair, I realize my husband is a man, and according to him, a very macho one at that. While I heap on the praise when he puts on a nice pair of jeans and sweater, or better yet a suit, I am not unrealistic about his limitations. He is never going to be a metrosexual and that is fine with me, as I don’t think I could be with someone who spent that much time on his appearance or did that weird gel thing with his hair like those men in the picture books at the hair salon. My husband is a coach so there is really no need for him to ever wear anything other than a sweatsuit to work or beg for lacrosse socks in an array of colors at Christmas, no matter how pathetic I think it might be. Yet, if I could just keep the grandfather hats that make him look like an overgrown extra from Newsies and the sport coats with the arm felt or awful plaid out of his hands and off his body, I think I would be satisfied.