moustache

Being bored at home can do some pretty weird things to you. As an example, I will provide the following cautionary tale.

While at home, figuring I had no one to impress and that my parents would love me either way, I decided to shave only the cheek and neck area, leaving the 'stache area and chin covered in what sparse hair covering my facial follicles could muster. What developed was the sketchiest, skeeviest facial hair this side of Charlotte (see picture below). While this stylistic choice was a victimless crime for a few days, it soon became apparent that venturing outside of my house and partaking in significant interactions with other people (especially people that would would like to respect you) did myself a great injustice.

The casual observer would not give the deformed goatee much notice, some offered stares that bordered on fascination, but two people that I would not wish to think me a complete clown definitely made concrete judgements on my character based on the presence of the poorly developed goatee-stache. They were:

1. Chris, the car salesman (see previous post). He must have thought: wow what a fool this kid is for growing this pitiful thing on his face. He must come from a family of such fools who will be easily duped into giving me large sums of money for a small, polite Japanese car. (This was not to be the case as Dad was set in not paying more than $400 over invoice, but the haggling probably took longer based on Chris' initial read of my facial signals).

2. Jimmy, my grand-uncle. Jimmy is an interesting character. He is a retired electrical engineer from Puerto Rico who enjoys building computers in his spare time when he isn't configuring his satellite to pick up more channels than he probably pays for. I guess retirement and getting older makes you more averse to the normal modes of paying for and getting goods or services (ref: early bird specials at restaurants). But I digress. When I came in to make the obligatory visit while in Florida, he saw me and immediately made a face one makes when tasting a paricularly curious new flavor or when trying to solve a complex puzzle. I guess in this instance the puzzle was why his previously reasonable grand-nephew was sporting this offense to the senses on his face. I think the graduation present took a hit because of it, lest his precious retirement money go to cover the cost of the drugs he must have thought I was one while shaving. (Not true, Jim, just really bored at home, sorry!)

Needless to say, I shaved later that day before making a trip over to Tyler's (I don't think the abomination would have gotten rave reviews there, either). I guess the grand lesson in all of this is to not attempt facial hair unless you can grow it sufficiently to some semblance of a style. I think I will funnel my latent creative energies into other, more productive ventures (you are reading one) while at home to prevent further damaging experimentation.

RIP, creeper stache, I hardly knew ye.


Clearly hasn't learned my lesson.