JEFF PEARLMAN

JEFF PEARLMAN

My personal battle with neck hair

Am sitting in Panera, enviously watching guys with cleanly shaved necks pass by one by one.

I struggle terribly with my neck. I shave my own head, let it grow, shave it, let it grow. But when I let it go, I forget to occasionally taper the neck. So I’m left with a quasi-Sasquatch look behind my head that grows and grows and grows. I’m the home owner who forgets to mow the lawn every so often (no charge for gratuitous vaginal metaphor), only he doesn’t realize it. so I imagine hundreds of people snickering behind my neck. Hee hee—look at the old man with the sprouts coming out of his head.

While we’re on the subject—I’m always at war with nasal hairs. I used to work with a man who came to the office with thick black bushes thrusting from each nosil. I’m not there (yet?), but I do sometimes have to tug at a longie or two. I find myself usually doing so in airplane bathrooms. The mirror is so close to the sink, you can’t help but notice every festering zit and stray follicle. I grab, wince, pull—THWING!

Another issue: My feet. My wife hates the way I care for my feet, which is to say I don’t really care for my feet at all. The nails become unruly and long. Once, I took a chunk out of the back of my daughter’s bare foot by walking too close. That was ugly.

Anyhow, there’s my breakdown.