Myself and Herself were at this event. It doesn\u2019t matter what it was, except that at one point we asked a man a question.<\/p>\n
The answer he gave was long and probably detailed and certainly delivered with enthusiasm, except that when we checked with each other later on, we couldn\u2019t recall a word of what he had said. Like me, this man was a beard-wearer, and although it was impossible to be certain \u2013 it could just have been the way the light hit the hairs \u2013 it appeared as if he\u2019d had a mishap. Perhaps it was a sneeze or a nose-blowing that had gone slightly askew. Nestling in the portion of beard around his mouth was a small dollop of glistening material, which, once noticed, grabbed our attention to the detriment of everything else. This made us instantly forget what we had asked. It was mesmeric.<\/p>\n
Being Irish, we immediately pointed out that he had a ball of snot stuck in his facial hair. The other people gathered around nodded in agreement. The man thanked us all profusely, wiped it away with a tissue and no one was even slightly embarrassed. <\/p>\n
Yes, that\u2019s absolutely what happened.<\/p>\n
Instead of dwelling on who should have said what to who, I feel it\u2019s more important to concentrate on the lessons to be drawn from this incident and the cruelly under-reported perils men can face. Particularly in relation to the hair around their heads. Beards cannot only trap bodily fluids, but if not marshalled properly, can contain clear evidence of the beard owner\u2019s last meal. It can look as if they are saving a snack for later.<\/p>\n
But beards are not the main problem area. Or even head hair. It\u2019s all the other stuff. As men march through life, hair begins to appear opportunistically in a wild range of locations. Sometimes, I like to speculate that I didn\u2019t go bald at all: the hair chose to shrink back past my epidermis and is now looking for alternative escape routes.<\/p>\n