The Etiquette of the Doctor’s Waiting Room…
So the dream of responsible beard ownership and management is over. Like so many of my dreams it lies swept into a corner of the bathroom being splashed on by The Cousin's misdirected urinal discharges. It's where all my dreams end.
The reasons for the swift removal of the beard were threefold.
I had an appointment with my doctor on Tuesday morning and rather than bike or taxi to see the man with the lady name I opted for walking. I am pro-walking now having experienced a jolly walk up The Black Mountain on Monday night. It's part of my weight loss program. I intend to lose a late nineties Calista Flockhart, well most of her or even an Olsen twin, over the next eight to twelve months.
Anyhoo by the time I had dragged my considerable largess to the doctors office I was hot, bothered, sweaty and probably not looking the very epitome of health and well being. I tried to dry myself off and compose myself in the waiting room when I happened to lock eyes with an old chum of mine.
Ugh!
I try not to make direct contact with other patients in the doctors waiting room. It's just good sense, you just don't know what they may have. You go in with a simple case of kidney stones that may have given you an infection and you come out with that and a frightful case of the lurgies. People in the doctors waiting room look and smell worse than the people on the bus and that's quite an achievement even by Belfast's very low standards.
But it was too late, our eyes had met and locked over the top of shuffles in her seat a lot woman and the man who stares at the young women (he stares like he has Predator Vision, sexual Predator Vision). I'm not even sure he is unwell, I'm sure he just hangs out there. I gave him a small wave and mouthed, "hi". This was enough, for me, but not for him apparently and seconds later he was over for a catch up chat. I have no problems with catch up chats but I don't think the doctors waiting room is the very best place for it. At some point he will ask why I am here and I really didn't want to go into the ins and outs of my kidney stones and possible infection. But he asked and I lied. He nodded and I squirmed.
Agh!
But I was saved by the bing bong of the screen requesting my presence in room one.
So in I walked, red faced, flushed, sweaty, hot and of course bearded up like I was auditioning for the roll of Young Grizzly Adams (the outdoors man not the leader of Sinn Fein).
"Oh dear, you don't look well! Not well at all." I've had worse greetings but still I could have lived without it. I explained myself, holiday beard, walk to the surgery etc.
"Phew, that beard eh...it takes your breath away eh"
That was strike one.
Oh and the abuse didn't end there. After discovering I have a perforated ear drum he gave me a lecture about turning the music on my iPod down.
"These things can cause permanent damage", says he as he poked at my Sennheiser headphones with his lolly pop stick. I assure you, his words fell on very deaf ears.
Come on!
So by the time I got home I was feeling less comfortable in my beard than I had when I had left the house. I stood looking at my fleecy face for ten minutes and I did not like what I saw. It was too ginger. Yes there were distinguished speckles of grey but not enough. I would be known as ginger beard, or pubes face or as Dawson Wam so eloquently put it, "Get it shaved off, you look like the Red Haired Key Janglers [another manager] Hairy Balls"
I do not want to look like a managers hairy scrotum.
Strike two.
So I took my razor out and decided I would give it a little trim.
Twenty minutes later and after a bit of correcting here and a large bit of correcting there I had the face of a man who lives on the street and enjoys shouting at street lights. This was not the dashing look I was trying to cultivate.
Strike three.
So it's over now, the dream, shaved off and gone. Lets all just pretend it never happened...
Thank god for that. A faceful of ginger pubes does not an attractive man make… which is why The Hubs is cleanshaven – being of the same beardy colour persuasion as yerself.
Bet LMM is doing a merry dance of glee!
she’s being sensitive at this difficult time…
It’s for the best, love. You know it. We knew it. It’s one of those things you just have to do and get out of your system.
But that’s all behind us now.
“The past is history. Tomorrow is a mystery” etc
but…but but I was bad superman and I loved it….but then i became ginger superman and nobody wants to be saved or served by a ginger…
i think y’all should grow a beard whenever y’all have a long holiday, sugar! sort of a “fuck you to the man” kinda thing, bit of rebellion or as the MITM says, not shaving everyday makes it a real vacation!
xoxoxoxx
yes, you are of course correct….
i’ll go with savannah’s suggestion – and promise not to shave for the entirety of my next holiday. which, unfortunately, is another long weekend on a beach… perhaps cornrows on my legs, with those little bead thingies?
no no no….don’t do it….and certainly don’t do it on my behalf….!
*registers major disgust and leaves*
I wanted to be like you……I really did….ha
Also dissapointed, i was using you as a poster boy and had even got the Missus to agree to a beard come winter (the correct time to grow one)
Now what will I do?
get everything pierced….I’m gonna…
Awww. I was hoping Beard would become a character
oh me too….maybe a spin off too…people would clamour for beard related merchandise and I would become rich…..dreams, I’ve had them…
There goes another Ex-Beardsman.
It was horrible, he was Gilletted
“but then i became ginger superman and nobody wants to be saved or served by a ginger…”
)
you forgot serviced (read ravaged
besides if you can’t grow one as glorious as granddad’s what’s the point?
stick to a holiday beard and clean it up later
Beard today, gone tomorrow ( dreadful, I know, but it was the best I could think of at such short notice )Or is that just bare faced cheek(s) on my part ? ( see what I did there ? )……………….Okay! I will just go away now.
whats wrong with you people there is nothing wrong with a ginger beard. i have been proudly sporting my luxurious beard with fifteen years now in the best tradition of luke kelly and others, i grew out my hair over the last two years turns out its curly and now almost resemble the great man himself. grow your beard with pride manuel, keep at it we gingers have only another few hundred years before we are out bred by the blondies and brunettes.
Just because you’re capable of growing a beard doesn’t always mean that you should. It’s probably for the best this way
HOW COULD YOU GET RID OF THE BEARD? Ahh Beardy Manuel, we hardly knew ya, and talking in the Doc’s office is the equivalent of talking in the mens room.
IT SHOULD NOT BE DONE.