Going Home
and Other Stories
By Sylvia Morice
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Sylvia Morice
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Table Of Contents
Rising (Or Falling) To a Challenge
Overcoming Envy
Have you ever wanted something you knew you could never have? Ever envied someone who had exactly that one thing you’d trade your soul for? You have? Me too, and that’s why I think you’ll be interested in my little story of sin and redemption.
I confess that for more years than I care to admit, I had an unladylike envy of a man’s...beard. It’s true. No matter how hard I tried to be discreet about my attraction, no matter how determined I was not to stare when I saw a particularly long, thick one, I could never control myself. Every time the opportunity arose I brushed up against bearded strangers in crowded malls and buses, or exclaimed to a surprised bearded man behind me at the grocery checkout, “Wow, what a great one! I wish I had one of those,” or followed strange men on the street just to admire the way their beards jiggled when they sashayed down the sidewalk. Not the actions of a well-adjusted woman.
Deep down I suspected that I couldn’t have what I wanted. Deep down I realized it was socially unacceptable, as well as physically near-to-impossible for me to grow a beard. I just wished it wasn’t so.
I had a good reason for feeling that way, for coveting a face-cover. You see, I have no chin. Oh, I don’t mean I have NO chin, in that my bottom teeth rest on my neck; I mean I don’t have a proper, sticky-out chin--one to add length to my round face and provide me with a profile with which to be proud.
I was tired of providing entertainment at parties by imitating the man-in-the-moon--why couldn’t I use a beard to cover my facial flaws? That’s what men used them for. It wasn’t fair.
Arnold is a prime example. He’s an attractive man, so debonair in his red goatee.
“Considers it his finest asset,” he says, and he grooms it with the pride of a doting parent. Who would guess that Arnold hides a receding chin under that red armor? It’s true; I sneaked a peek at his high school yearbook when I was visiting him one day and there he was--beardless and chinless.
Fortunately for Arnold, I’m good at keeping secrets.
Then of course there’s Ron, one of our local doctors, whose gray hair and gray-flecked beard gave him a real Kenny Rogers appeal, made him the heartthrob of every woman in town. Did anyone care that he’s forty pounds overweight, is nearing sixty and has had a devoted wife (with a perfectly good chin, might I add), for thirty-five years? No.
Unfortunately for Dr. Ron he made the mistake last month of appearing in public sans gray-flecks. Not a single woman swooned over him; he was transformed into just another old married man with a weight problem.
I heard from a reliable source that the good doctor regrets his decision to face life without a beard but is too embarrassed to re-grow it, afraid that townsfolk will consider him vain. Our town has its share of gossips and they like to talk about such things. That’s what I heard, anyway.
I swear by the hair on my grandfather’s chin, these are not isolated cases. Look around you--chin-whiskered men are everywhere. Are these males too cheap to buy electric razors, too timid to put steel blade to skin? I think not. Vanity, thy name is man.
My therapist (who by the way, has a perfectly good Sigmund Freud beard), said I had to get over my preoccupation with beards or risk it becoming an obsession.
“Do something constructive to confront your envious emotions,” he said. “Perhaps pencil in beards on several of your old photos.”
I figured any advice that cost me $100 a session must be good advice so I did as he suggested.
My husband was a little upset when he found the altered snapshots, but I told him we had more wedding photos somewhere. (We didn’t, as it turned out, but that’s another story for another time.)
The good news is I’ve made a few startling revelations: I discovered that a beard isn’t all it’s brushed up to be, I discovered that some people don’t look good in beards, and I discovered there are worse things in life than having no chin--for example the very real possibility of me having no husband if I can’t erase the beards from our pictures.
I have seen the light. I no longer desire a beard. I no longer want what I know I can never have. I will now face the world as a well-adjusted, chinless woman, resorting to tricks of illusion to add length to my pie-plate face. I have decided to wear dangling earrings that rest on my shoulder blades, avoid bowl-type hairstyles, always steer clear of turtlenecks and wear my blouses open as low as decency and the law allows.
I’m even developing a new line of specially clothing, due to hit the marketplace next spring, or maybe fall. I have a gut-level feeling that after my line appears in the stores, beards will be out; Clothes for the Chinless will be in. I’m almost certain.
Is anyone ready to place an order?
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Rising (Or Falling) To a Challenge
Friends dropped in to visit recently. We sat around my kitchen table, shared coffee and cinnamon buns and discussed politics, the weather, business and squirrels.
It seems that my friends had a squirrel living in their backyard and he was neither a welcome pet nor an invited guest.
He spent his days running up and down tree trunks, scampering onto branches just out of reach of the family dogs. There he’d sit, chittering and chattering insults to the two frenzied canines below, driving the dogs to the edge of insanity and then trying to push them over.