How to Grow a Beard

By David Leonhardt

 Occasionally, I've been known to be somewhat opinionated. Oops. My wife just caught that typo. I am told I have been known to be VERY opinionated. I have at least two opinions on just about every topic. I am sure there are times when people have felt like rearranging my face. Unfortunately (for them!) there is no legal method for them to do that

Being a kind and generous individual, I have been searching for ways to help these unfortunate victims of my over-active opinionation. Finally, I have found a way to rearrange my face.

To help them out, I have grown a beard.

It was so easy, you can do it, too.

Here is how to grow a beard. (Ladies, please don't try this at home.) On Day 1, I did nothing. On Day 2, I did nothing again. On Day 3, I did nothing twice. On Day 4, I verified that nothing was still being done. Then I simply repeated the cycle.

(Editor's note: Douglas Adams denied any collaboration on this bear-growing article!)

It's been about five or six weeks, and my face is definitely rearranged.

Is my growing beard the inevitable result of declining budgets at the Witness Protection Program?

To tell the truth, the decision to grow my beard was not just to atone for my hyperopinionation. In fact, what I really wanted to do was to see how I looked in a beard. Yes, curiosity is the real reason I have been growing a beard.

Oops, there goes my ever-efficient wife, catching a typo again. I am told that line should have read: "Laziness is the real reason I have been growing a beard."

Truth be told, I did the four-day nothing cycle more by accident. When you work out of home and have nobody to impress but a skunk under the porch, a stray cat meandering about, the withering cherry tree sapling and a handful of flocking sparrows, the days can just kind of get away from you. Before I knew it, I had the foundation of a growing beard.

That's when I got curious.

And lazy.

Some have suggested that I am growing my beard to make up for my receding hairline. I've heard it all.

"Once upon a time, your hair was on top of your head. Now, your head is on top of your hair."

"Your hair must have slipped off your head, and now it's hanging on for dear life."

"That solar panel you had installed up there is really fueling a growth below."

"The 'Hanging Gardens of Babble-on'"

Ha, ha, very funny.

I think my curiosity is settled. I am still lazy, but I am ready to shave off my beard. Unfortunately, my wife's grandmother has not yet seen it, so I am keeping it on by special request until she can see it. Due to a heavy schedule, that visit might take a while.

Oops. Silly me. My wife the proofreader has saved me from inaccuracy once more. I am told that it is due to being too lazy to shave my beard, that visit might take a while.

But sooner or later, the beard will have to go. I don't want to be mistaken for Charles Manson. Nor Fidel Castro. Nor Josephia Quade, whomever she is.

And summer is not the best season for growing a beard. It would make more sense in winter, when I need protection against the bitter arctic winds. In summer, it will only make my face sweat.

But what will finally end my curiosity – and my laziness! – is food. When something sufficiently ooey and gooey gets stuck in the beard – something that I just cannot identify – that will probably scare me into shaving it off.

Besides, all this beard-growing is probably of little comfort to those people wanting most to rearrange my face because of my vocal opinions. Knowing how to grow a beard won't solve their problem.

A stapler might.