Since I was 21 and I decided to get a jump-start on Fate and shave my head before the dominant gene passed down from my grandfather on my mother's side could wreak its follicular havoc on my cranium, two features have dominated my identity.
1.) Ryan Rhodes has a shaved head.
2.) Ryan Rhodes always has a goatee, albeit in fluctuating permutations.
I've grown to depend on my goatee as a counterweight to the lack of hair up top. Rather than a healthy head of hair, I've always had a goatee with with to tease and experiment. My goatee keeps me from looking more egg-like than human-like.
Last week, for some reason that escapes me, I decided to hack off my goatee and see how things were going on the skin beneath my omnipresent whiskers. I was not prepared for the individual who greeted me when I raised my mug to the mirror.
I looked YOUNGER. I looked SMOOTHER. I looked decidedly less MENACING.
And, I didn't like it one little bit.
What was funny was that, at work, everybody realized something was different, but they couldn't figure out what it was. They studied me with the intensity of Sesame Street tots trying to figure out which one of the things just doesn't belong there. Finally, the bells started going off and they realized what was different.
They didn't care for it much, either.
I'm growing my goatee back this week. Enough of that shit.
Posted by Ryan at November 3, 2003 01:19 PM
Stumble It!
