Believe it or not, in my 28 (almost 29 years) of life...I have NEVER seen my father with a beard.
I think facial hair runs in fear from his face.
There was one time, and I do mean ONE, that I saw him with just the slightest of a five o'clock shadow, but that was because he had just undergone triple by-pass surgery...and those crazy doctors wouldn't let him shave mid-surgery. (I'm sure he had something to say to them about that afterwards...)
So ANYWAYS...
The other night, quite out of the blue, my father says to me, "why the Hell doesn't your boyfriend shave that bear's ass off his face!!"
To which I replied rather stupefied, "I dunno. He likes beards. I like him with a beard. I like guys with beards."
(The truth is that my boyfriend is part bear-ninja on his grandfather's side of the family. That man can grow a full beard in a day. If he shaves at 8am, by noon it looks like he hasn't shaved in a week. For him, being clean-shaven would require him to lather up with the blood of a thousand slain velociraptors and to shave 3 times a day with the polished scales of a three-horned dragon...)
My father was bumfuzzled by my retort.
"How can you LIKE someone with a beard! Beards aren't natural. They're lazy, and no decent man would have one."
Now this is OBVIOUSLY not true.
Beard's are about the MOST NATURAL thing a fella can have on his face (besides the remnants of a delicious Reuben and a goofy grin) and LOTS of DECENT men have sported beards throughout history. (IE: Jesus, Santa Claus, that guy from Iron and Wine, King Randor from He-Man, Obi Wan Kenobi, etc.)
So anyways, I argued that point to my father.
"Well, Santa Claus has a beard, and Santa Claus is pretty awesome."
To which my father replied:
"Santa Claus is a figment of your imagination. You're 28 years old, shouldn't you know that by now?!"
I was shocked by his brutality.
Yes, I AM 28 years old, but my childish dreams of Santa Claus and unicorns and chocolate cake for breakfast are still VERY MUCH intact. (Or at least THEY WERE.)
I couldn't stand for this sudden onslaught of childhood fantasy-squashing, so I went for the obvious supreme end-all of arguments...I used JESUS.
My dad LOVES JESUS. (There's NOTHING WRONG with that. In fact, there's probably a lot RIGHT with that, but I digress...) He would never say a bad word against Jesus, or Jesus' beard...or so I thought...
I sat there staring at him from my comfy armchair, a smug grin starting to spread across my overly confident face as I said matter-of-factly, "Jesus had a beard. You like Jesus. Are you going to say that Jesus wasn't a decent man because he had a beard?"
I continued to sit there with the goofy look of premature victory on my ignorant face. I had just dropped the gauntlet. There would be no more argument.
Or so I thought...
It was then that my darling father straightened up from his seat on the end of the couch and looked at me like I had just said that I could shoot laser monkeys out of my asshole.
He pointed an accusatory finger at me and exploded, "Jesus didn't have no damn beard! That's a damn lie!! And he didn't have none of that long hippie hair like they draw on him either!!"
I was flabbergasted.
I was stunned.
I was stifling a roar of laughter so hard that I almost cracked a rib.
I just looked at him.
He was SERIOUS.
I composed myself as best I could and asked him point blank, "So...back when you were a pup and you and Jesus used to hang out, he was sportin a flat-top and a baby face?"
I forced myself NOT to laugh.
My dad looked me square in the eyes as he said...
"You're DAMN STRAIGHT he did."
So...long story short, there's a lot of things my Dad doesn't believe in.
He doesn't believe in beards, or Santa Claus, and he probably won't buy that whole spiel about the velociraptor blood or the bear-ninja....
But he STRAIGHT-UP believes in G.I. Jesus.
Boo-rah!!
-K.
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