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Vanity Does Not Pay

Ever have one of those days when you look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Man, I’m a dork”?

Actually, with me, it’s pretty much a daily occurrence, but today, it was in all caps.

I. AM. A. DORK.

I was already kicking myself for ordering my son’s customized (and non-returnable) Brewers T-shirt in a youth medium size instead of an adult medium. But I took the utter stupidity to an entirely new level this morning.

In October, I will have a role in the Theatre Unlimited musical, “Camelot.” For the part, a beard is required, and a vacation up north last week seemed to be the perfect time to get it started.

Unfortunately, said beard gets whiter by the day. While I have very little grey in my hair, my beard is so white it adds about 10-15 years to my appearance. The dark/light combination makes me look like Pepe Le Pew. Steve Knox (no stranger to hair coloring issues) suggested that I might have a future as a Mall Santa.

After about 10 days of seeing this old man staring back at me in the mirror, I decided to take action. The play isn’t for two months, so a little Just for Men would make it tolerable until I really needed the beard to be grey for the performances. After all, if manly men like Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Keith Hernandez use it, it’s OK, right?

The instructions in the box tell you that the longer the junk sits on your beard before you shampoo it, the darker it makes your hair. They’re not kidding. I obviously took too much time because the color went from its supposed dark brown straight to black. The change wasn’t subtle, as I intended. It was ridiculous, like going from Gandalf to Bluto in minutes. I couldn’t go to work (or anywhere in public) looking like that, so off went the beard.

That’s when the true panic occurred. Once the beard was removed, I saw that the hair dye had stained my face. It looked like I was sporting a greasepaint beard. I looked like a clown, for Pete’s sake!

The initial washing with soap yielded no results. The panic ratcheted up to near-hyperventilation levels. What am I going to do??!!

My wife calmly suggested that a little scrubbing would probably remove the stain. As is usual, she was right, but it took a rough washcloth and about 10 minutes of scouring. Several hours later, my face is still sore from the massacre.

My only consolation is that I’m not alone in the area of home dying fiascos. One of my female friends accidentally made her hair a shade of bright orange once, prompting a frantic late-night call to the company’s toll-free help line.

I’ll have to start regrowing the facial hair soon. And it’s time I just accept the fact that it’s more salt than pepper.

So much salt, I could own stock in Morton.