Week One: The D-Chinstrap

Pre-week:

Introducing...the D-Chinstrap. So suggested by a man who knows his beards--Chuck--who really wants me to call it the Douchy Chinstrap.

This is week one's winner. Keep this look in mind and project forward to imagine what I might be able to grow, and what you would like the look to be next week. Only five voting days remaining...all beard polls close at 4 PM on Sunday, September 12th!

Week in Review: With the D-Chinstrap in place, it was only down to the reactions from the various factions I encounter each week.

First, there were the students: they shared about their weekends on Monday morning and at the end, I tried to skate by with nary a word about my personal life (all the better for keeping up the mysterious Batman-like visage) but one girl exposed me by asking, "And what did you do?" When I brushed her off with some non-descript replies about "much of the usual" she countered by saying, "Well, that's not true, you shaved!" Suddenly, my facial hair became the topic of the moment. They ogled it and cooed over it, wondering how I could shave it, why I shave it and any and every other question to avoid the fact that I was just about to ask them to work. Nice try. The rest of the week, they asked me sporadic and spontaneous questions about my facial hair: why it was reddish; why it was several different colors; and why there were some white streaks in it. The last of those I reassured them it was probably just blonde.

My own children, having survived my face in all its permutations both charged me at the door Tuesday afternoon and claimed they liked my new "chinstrap." Have to love your own kids even more when they recognize the motif without you naming it. I take that to mean we possess a very advanced three year-old; I don't know about you.

As for adults, well, not surprisingly, no one said a word about it. But, in the category of yet another thing I probably should have thought through a bit more before doing it (which most people would argue is all of the things I do) I did capture this D-Chinstrap forever in school photos on Picture Day (to be proudly displayed in the yearbook as the Second Grade teacher most kids want to forget....) Good plan.