See my beard? No? Me neither, but I wish I did

My face, for the first time in over 20 years, is utterly and completely naked. I look like a nerd, even more so than usual and that’s saying a lot.

I’m not sure what possessed me to take a razor to my decades-old beard, but I did, last Monday. The stranger who stared out at me from the mirror once the shaving soap had been rinsed away bore little resemblance to the devastatingly handsome (uh-huh) man whose mug shot appears alongside this column.

Being half-Greek, I furred up early in life. I sported a set of god-awful mutton-chop sideburns at 16 and a full beard before my 17^th birthday. Since then, my whiskerless days have been few and far between. Seeing my exposed face in the mirror, I’m savagely reminded of why this is so.

Simply put, I have one of those faces best left covered. A bag could no doubt accomplish this better than a beard, but that, I fear, would invite even more Elephant Man comparisons than I hear already.

Sweet Annie (yeah, we’re back together, doing fine, and she’s promised not to kill me in my sleep unless she’s really, really provoked) says I look handsome without my beard. This disturbs me because up until now, she’s never lied to me about anything.

Every time we sit down to dinner, she reaches across the table and rubs the previously camouflaged cleft in my chin like it’s some sort of lucky talisman. I’m not sure what that’s all about, but it kind of freaks me out. I don’t complain, however, just in case complaining should count as “provoking.”

Fortunately, beards grow back; mine has already begun to. For the next couple weeks, I’ll be looking like the last day of deer hunting season, but after that everything should be fine.

My beard, like the hair on virtually every other surface of my body, grows faster than corn in July. For once, being a fur-bearing mammal is going to work to my advantage.

It’s my half-Greek heritage coming to the rescue, though I usually associate myself more with my mother’s Irish lineage. I grew up on tales of St. Patrick, leprechauns and the Blarney Stone; it wasn’t until high school that I discovered Sophocles, the Parthenon and Zeus.

When it comes to beard-growing, though, it’s hard to beat the folks who gave us Socrates, one of the great fur-faces of all time and a worthy predecessor to ZZ Top.

Sure, the Greeks also gave us western philosophy, higher mathematics and the Acropolis. But for me, in my current naked-faced condition, those gifts run a distant second to the Homeric genetics that allow me to fur up fast.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.