Trashed elbow

I grew a beard. This was part of Plan K.

In the beginning, there were three. Muzz, The Human Torch and myself. We were all sworn not to shave throughout our holiday and to parade our resultant facial hair for a week or so after work started.

The Human Torch was the first apple off the cart: he got cold feet and shaved before he went back to work. This was a terrible shame, because his was the best beard. If there were any drawbacks it was only that his swarthy growth made it difficult to get through customs in our post 9/11 world.

And then there were two.

Muzz also had an excellent beard. I told him he looked like that guy out of Die Hard. He was pretty happy with this until he found out that I wasn't talking about Alan Rickman's crazed terrorist, but about Ellis, the worthless cokehead cannon fodder. After a week (and a few barely-legal experiments) he also shaved away his pride and left me to face the continual itching on my own.

So now there is one.



I asked my kids today what they thought of the beard: thumbs up or thumbs down? Three out of three gave me thumbs down. The lone girl of the group also told me that if I do not shave before next week she will be very angry.

She is only five years old, so I am not scared of her. I am scared of the future, though. I wanted to promise that next week I would be without beard, but I couldn't. I remember how strangely painful it was to get rid of my New Year beard last year after the Viet Nam trip.

All that remains of Plan K is the hair on my chin, a single can of silkworm pupa and a couple of unavenged dogs. Once I shave, Korea is gone forever. I'll be like the girl that has her hair cut short: each lock falls to the ground accompanied by a tear.

Labels: COMRADES, IMAGES, SELF IMPROVEMENT