Tuesday, May 3, 2011

I am not Commander Riker


Growing the beard does nothing to improve my life, appearance or the general quality of all things surrounding me - yet I keep growing one anyway!

Why? First, because I am profoundly lazy. As I am decidedly non-wolfman, my beard doesn't grow with any aggressive speed. There's not much beard change from day to day, so it's very easy to shrug my shoulders and say, "Meh, I'll tackle it tomorrow." As time went on, the beard procrastination time grew longer and longer - until I actually had a REAL. FRIGGIN. BEARD. That was unexpected.

Compounding my laziness is my bathroom's plumbing. For some reason, the water in the sink takes a long time to heat up. So every morning, when I would plan to shave, I would stumble over to the sink, turn it on, wait a minute, give up and return to bed for a few more precious minutes of sleep. I decided to go with the crazy beard thing in Savannah. It makes me look like a proper art student! I even grew to like having a moderate amount of facial hair.

But the thing about hair is that it grows, and nice beards look nice for a limited time. Sure, I could buy a beard trimmer and just use that - but implies I am committed to having a beard. Even though I've rocked facial hair for most of the past year, I still don't consider myself a bearded dude. All cartoon Chrispys drawn by me are clean-shaven! No, my beard will only exist as a sign of laziness and insanity! I'll let it grow until it become truly hideous, shave it off and start the cycle anew.

A few weeks ago, the time to shave came. Like a true lazy person, I shrugged it off and said I'd do it the next day. There was only one problem: THE HOCKEY PLAYOFFS STARTED THAT DAY!

It's a tradition in hockey to grow a playoff beard while your team is in the playoffs, and I was going to partake in that tradition this year. If I shaved after the playoffs started, that would jinx my team. But... but I REALLY needed to shave!

Well, seeing as my team is the Washington Capitals, who are known for choking in the playoffs year after year, I figured that problem would take care of itself. And if they succeeded, DUDE, MY TEAM IS WINNING! A crazy "I'm homeless and unstable" beard is TOTALLY worth that! Sure enough, the Caps knocked out their first round opponent with relative ease. Go beard!

And then round two began. Loss. Loss. Loss. The Caps are still alive, but things are as bleak as they could be. You know what, guys? You don't need my beard's help any more. Shortly after the game ended today in heartbreaking fashion, I walked to the bathroom and grabbed my razor. I am done with you, playoff beard!

Despite my massive jinxing of my team, I will continue to root for the Caps to pull the miracle. They don't need my beard to succeed - THE MAGIC WAS IN THEM THE WHOLE TIME!

(Yeah, they're gonna get swept and it's all my fault.)


2 comments:

Tekaramity said...

Once the Wings and Capitals are both swept, we will weep simultaneously...

...but who will we *bandwagon*?

Vancouver, since ponies are made there?

San Jose, since computers are made there?

Boston, since accents are made there?

Tampa Bay, since...

...yeah, I got nothin'.

Christopher J Paulsen said...

I've offered my support to the last survivor of Detroit/Vancouver in the west, and my if-it's-not-us pick in the east was Boston going into the playoffs.

Man, I'm regretting rooting for Tampa last round. The Caps completely owned Pittsburgh this year and that matchup would have been better, but I was impatient and wanted to see our rivals get knocked out in a painful fashion round one.