My Movember Adventure

A gin-fueled conversation at a party in August led to me finally growing some facial hair this Movember.  I could say I was motivated to draw attention to men's health issues but really I was just curious about what it would be like.  I've never gone more than 2 days without shaving* and I had questions.
- How would I look with scruff?  Like Don Johnson circa Miami Vice or like a serial killer?
- How long would I need to achieve enough facial hair to get past the super-cheesy 17-yr-old-with-a-mustache phase?
- Will letting my scruff go feel as annoying and scratchy as I think?
- Will loved ones laugh and point or just laugh?

*When I was 19 I got the chicken pox so I went about 5 days without shaving.  This was the pre-selfie era and we're all thankful for that.  Also, I wasn't really an adult yet so it didn't count.

So I embarked on a shaving-free adventure.  Here is the timeline of key phases.

Day 1 - Saturday November 1
I didn't shave today!  Did anyone notice?  Anyone?

Day 2 -- Sunday 11/2
Second day without shaving.  Time saved not shaving can be applied to watching additional football, always a bonus.  On day 2 only people hyper aware of my facial hair* notice that anything is different.

* Me...and me.

Day 5 - Wednesday 11/5
Now things are starting to show.  To no one's surprise I've got a fair amount of gray mixed in with whatever beard I've mustered so far.  It feels like a brillo pad stuck to my face.  In the mirror I perceive myself to look like late-career Brett Favre with a side order of serial killer.

At this point I've also discovered that I'm inept at taking selfies.  I see myself in the mirror and think, "OK, I guess I can live with that."  Then I take a picture of myself in the mirror and what shows up on the camera is a completely different person.  "Who is THIS clown?  This is not the same me I see in the mirror.  Is this a strange iPhone filter that changes you into a different person?"  So my Movember chronicling is plagued by poor photographic documentation.

Day 7 - Friday 11/7
Now I'm annoyed.  The beard is advancing and I'm scratching constantly.  I wonder how noted neck beard enthusiast Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts can even function as a human with neck hair, much less operate as a professional athlete.  I traveled for work this week and I told everyone in the office there, "Get a good look now because this isn't happening again."

I fly home and we have a dinner outing planned with two other couples  I'm not going to make it through the night without taking some action so I do a Google image search of beards to help me figure out how to trim this monster.*  I land on a picture of Daniel Craig** as the closest representation of what I've got going and pull out the razor to clean things up based on his personal grooming leadership.   Beard maintenance is a lot trickier than I ever imagined but cleaning things up a bit makes life more livable.

I'm not sure how you can tell us apart.

*It felt monstrous to me but probably barely registered on the Duck Dynasty scale.
**When you do a google image search there are no photos of accountants from Iowa or IT dweebs from Minnesota.  It's primarily movie stars so that's what I had for comparison.  Mr. Craig and I are at least the same age and have the same coloring.

Day 8 - Saturday 11/8
Time for radical change.  The beard experiment has lasted long enough and I have a game plan.  Today:  goatee.  Maybe it's really a Van Dyke but I call it a goatee.  It's the go-to facial hair configuration for guys of my generation wanting to look tougher than they really are.  Because of the cliche potential I'm only signing up for the goatee for one day but it has to be done.  Finally shaving all the other scratchy stuff makes things more palatable by another notch.  But now I look like Generic Sports Bar Guy #3.

Day 9 - Sunday 11/9 - Wednesday 11/12
Now we get to the fun part.  There's no reason to go through all of this struggle and not have a Fu Manchu.  First thing Sunday I shave off the chin hair to leave a glorious* Fu Manchu-style mustache.  My first thought is...

I let it incubate for a few days.  Mature.  Steep.  Blossom.  True, it garnered more giggles than fear but at least I could operate under the self-induced illusion that the Fu Manchu granted me extraordinary powers of intimidation, martial arts prowess, and Jesse The Body Ventura quotes.  That is, until I realized I was looking a lot like Creepy Rob Lowe from the DirecTv ads.  As I walked around the office I could see people shying away and thinking, "restraining order."

To be clear, I'm on the left and Creepy Rob Lowe is on the right.

*All things are relative.

Day 13 - Thursday 11/13
And finally, a mustache.  It wasn't quite the robust, 70's era porn 'stache that would really set hearts a-flutter but it was unmistakably a mustache.  I believe -- and the competition for this distinction over the course of my life is fierce -- that there has never been another day where I looked MORE idiotic.

Is that not the most glorious, sensible-female-repelling, young-child-frightening facial hair abomination you've ever seen?  And equally glorious was how this coincided with the one day at the office where we interview a fresh batch of college recruits for jobs.  Those kids won't remember a single thing I said during my kickoff speech* but they'll probably remember that there was a guy with a ridiculous mustache.

*OK, they'll probably remember my references to the Hunger Games, TJ Lavin, and Dr. Seuss's Sneetches.

Day 14 -- Friday 11/14
That's it, I'm done.  I know the point of this is to maintain a mustache all month but I can't take it anymore.  Friday morning arrives and I hack that thing off as quickly as I can.  Ahhhh, blissful, non-hirsute normal-ness.  At least I can say I tried it.  For those of you who witnessed it:  cherish the memories as I'm not likely to try it again anytime soon.