MUCH ADO ABOUT... MY BEARD

Yes... I, bigfooz, now have a full-fledged beard. It's full on... my "man rug" is now all over the bottom half of my face... stretching from the sideburns to the cheeks, down to the chin and right back up to the upper lip.

And I didn't look quite as scary as I thought I'd be...

Thing is... the beard is getting me more attention from people than I had anticipated. They keep asking me: Why are you keeping the beard...? Why do you want to look like this? Why... why... why...?

"Is it because you're depressed over something...?"

"Are you now more religious?"

"Are so so damn bloody lazy now you can't even bloody pick up a stupid razor and shave, you bloody hippee?" (Ok... my grandaunt didn't exactly say that. What she said was in Malay so some of the meaning may be lost in translation but I think that's pretty much the gist of it)

I wish I could go make a bold statement about how my beard signifies my stand on manhood... against the emasculation of man with the current wave of metrosexual conformity that has swept the world and influenced the psyche of young males today through subliminal messages within mainstream media to subconciously imprint into their feeble minds the implicit need to scrub, shave, pluck and "boyzillian" wax themselves clean of any signs of manhood! We need to uphold the ideals of masculinity. It's is time men look like men! Death to the pretty boys!

Hmm... that was quite a manifesto...

But truth be told, I kept the beard... because I can. Not many people have the kind of raging testosterone and genetic make up to grow a full beard. And also because I was too damn bloody lazy last week to bloody pick up the stupid razor and shave... (So my grandaunt was right... except for the hippee part. Old people... they're very astute. They can see through you. Always.)

To those of you who are not big fans of my beard... fret not. It's going off soon enough... it won't be long before I get called to serve the nation (no beards allowed in the Police Force). Or I'll probably shave it when I take another stab in the corporate world (don't think they'd appreciate the beard there too) after my sabbatical this coming January.

But most likely it'll be off is when my grandaunt decides to pop over...