“I’ll be right there.” That was my girlfriend’s reaction when I told her I’d just shaved my face for the first time since we’d been together. Nothing too unusual about her wanting to see it, right? Except that she was in Manhattan, and I was in Phoenix.
No-Shave November
- Meet these Vegas beards
- Time to celebrate No-Shave November, and the adornment of our time
- Local barbers dish beard grooming tips and products
- Bearing witness to culture's leap into the bearded age
- The Gay Beards are out to make the Internet smile
- That time I accidentally bared my face to the world
- That time my dad went to Vegas and never came home
- Quiz: Name that beard! A dozen famous faces with plumage you should know
I didn’t mean to shave off my entire beard, only to trim it. But my clippers didn’t have a guard, and I slipped, badly, the cold blade meeting the middle of my cheek, chopping as it went. No hiding that, I thought, so I removed the rest. I looked upon my bare face for the first time in more than two years and … I hated it. Surely, this wasn’t what I looked like before. I mean, so much skin. And that shape? Yuck.
True to her word, my girlfriend flew cross-country the next day to see me—and it’s a good thing she did. Otherwise, after 17 years as my wife, she’d still have never laid eyes on the beardless me. Because that was the last time I shaved.