The Adventures of Captain Beardo

Beards: Fully badass, or completely assbad?

A month and a half ago, I decided that in an effort to further support a friend during her pregnancy I'd grow what I coined a "Sympathy Beard."  I figured that since she was so uncomfortable, I would also be uncomfortable... follicly.  If you didn't know, [in their infancy] beards are uncomfortably itchy, they keep you awake all night by poking your face relentlessly whenever you adjust your sleepy head, and they give your face the appearance of being puffier than usual. To me, those ailments sounded like metaphorical gold; sure to be greeted with nothing but praise.

Upon walking through her front door, I proudly explained my symbolic gesture of sympathetic unity, and was promptly put in my place.  You could say that I got thoroughly lambasted with the force of a thousand pregnant women.  To put it politely, she dismissed my "Sympathy Beard" as anything that even came close to the pain of having a tiny person feng shui your guts every three to five minutes.

Still, I valiantly continued to grow my majestic beard hair amongst all the nay saying.  At the time, I was completely naive to the ramifications a beardy growth would have on present-day Kris Bryan, both positively and negatively.  Good or bad though, this guy has been changed forever.

Positive Changes:

1. I never get carded anymore in situations when age verification is required.  I like to believe it's because I look more distinguished and gentlemanly, where in reality I probably don't get carded by an Age Verifying Professional because in their mind they've decided I've totally let myself go, a tell-tale sign of being an old shithead.

2. When thinking about something, I get to utilize the "Deep Thinking Beard Maneuver."  For the unbearded, that's when you put your thumb and index finger on opposite cheeks and slowly stroke downwards until said fingers meet at the bottom center of your chin.  I've noticed that the more times I repeat this maneuver during a group pondering session, the more my friends assume I'm getting deeper and deeper into thought; giving the illusion that I'm a professor from some higher education learning house or something.  Checkmate.

3. It has afforded my Brother-In-Law (a fellow Beard Face) and I to ditch all forms of conventional, vanilla, hand-based greetings and create a next level, cutting edge "Beard Shake."  To properly pull off a textbook "Beard Shake," follow these quick and easy steps:
     a. Find another bearded companion and stand uncomfortably close, face to face, slightly askew.
     b. In one fluid motion, position your heads cheek to cheek creating a "Beard Bond."
     c. In unison, move your heads back and forth against each other, repeating as many times as possible until the awkwardness of the situation ends the "Beard Shake."
     d. Carry on with your day.

4. I get to feel like I'm in an extremely exclusive facial hair secret society I imagine is named "The Fraternal Order Of The Beard".  Every time I see another beardo in my general vicinity, they either give me a bro head nod, the dual pistol fingers and mouth the word "Shoota!", or a wink that says "Hey, we both have beards... we throw caution to the wind."  In lieu of this, I decided to create a new, sleek, modern gesture that I could flash triumphantly.  All I do is perform the aforementioned "Deep Thinking Beard Maneuver"... with a twist.  After stroking my cheeks and start heading towards the southern region of my face, instead of having my digits meet at the middle of my chin, I switch it up by locking my thumb into my dimple and sweeping my index finger all the way back into my balled up fist, creating a thumbs up!  So intuitive, so profoundly genius.

5. I automatically join the ranks of other famously bearded all-stars like Santa Claus, Billy "OxiClean" Mays, Ernest Hemingway, Teen Wolf, Chuck Norris, Papa Smurf, Confucius, ZZ Top, Post-Presidential-Campaign Al Gore, Jesus, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and "Macho Man" Randy Savage.  OH YEEEEAH!

6. I get to create new nicknames for me and my beard face!  Here's my top 10 thus far:

10) Red Beard's Delight

9) The Cro Magnon Manscape
8) Ulysses S. Grant Jr.
7) Beard Al Yankovich
6) The Lorax
5) Al Qaeda Camouflage
4) Helen Keller Facial Recognition Device
3) ManBeardPig
2) Facial Hair-iet Tubman
1) The Jessica Tandy

As good as that sounds, there are some drawbacks to me being a Beard Face.  In no particular order, here are some negatives:

-Direct sunlight on my beard can create an undesired gingerish luster.

-When I eat corn on the cob, my face looks like a Civil War battlefield, if the Civil War was fought by corn in lil' suits.

-For some reason the portion of beard around my mouth hole is blond. It looks like I have been giving CPR to a dairy cow's teat, lacking any mouth-to-udder suckling training, resulting in a milk mouthstache. Because of this, I now have an irrational fear of going to dairy confiscation compounds, as I'm sure I'd hear an employee say "I remember my first teat suckling..." when they saw me and the white mouth area of my beard sauntering off their property.

-I have really dark facial hair and naturally light blond cranial hair so if I'm not wearing a hat, it looks like I purposely frost my tips, which I'm sure gives the impression that I'm a huge Guy Fieri Superfan. That's some weak shit.

-It's a construction debris magnet.  Asking your Best Friend to Shop-Vac your face after a long day on the job site doing Pre-Savior Jesus work is not only the most ridiculous request to just throw out there, but could lead to a series of Liam Neeson throat punches for even asking.

-The beard face leads to seedy, shifty-eyed glances laced with panic from uptight suburbanized white folks when boarding an airplane.

-Accidentally being mistaken for a Tazo Tea sipping, skinny jeans wearing, non-prescription thick-rimmed glasses sporting, indie music rocking, summertime beanie reppin' Hipster cock bag is the worst feeling ever.


-It's a requirement to wear beard nets when working with/serving food.  What "The Man" doesn't realize is that those damned facial hair nets have set proud, independent, strong, brawny Beard Faces back 12 years, when Metrosexuals were the cock of the walk and androgyny was king.  Prepare for the rise of Crab People, America. Assholes.

At any rate, even if the bad cancels out the good, I'm going to continue to grow this shining beacon of shaving freedom and see where it takes me.  What can I say?  I've become attached to it.  Ba-Zing!

Song stuck in my head while writing this:

Adios.  Kris Bryan Is Nuts.