Pogonophobia

 I grew a beard by mistake. For some reason, air travel in hot weather causes me to get cold sores and, it being me, my cold sores aren't like normal cold sores. They make my entire mouth distort. I'm like Faceache in Buster*. There was an audible "scrunge". So I grew a beard in an attempt to disguise it. Look, here: Fig 1. 

It really reared up on the last day of the holiday as we got on a coach to an airport, where we were several hours early. Literally thousands of people saw my hideous swollen face. The beard was, at this point, very small. It grew in a bit, however. Here's Fig 2. 

There it is, in colour. You can just about make out that while most of the beard is white, the moustache is a sort of pale ale colour, like a craft beer that tastes of damp straw and has a shit pun for a name. I'm largely in favour of shit puns, but only when it's me doing them. At this point the lip had almost healed but I was under the allure of the beard. Maybe it looks good, I thought. Practically everyone has a beard now. There must be a reason for it. Maybe, somehow, I'll look rugged and sexy and not like Buster Merryfield or a cheerful fish finger salesman. The beard continued. Fig 3. 

Oh. He looks like fun. What a party man. The beard, the Hawaiian shirt, the frosty stare: it's the funkiest sex tourist you ever did see. I don't think the beard's working for me. I'm an early 80's New Romantic kind of guy. I'm all guy-liner and contouring and wearing sweet wrappers in my hair. Here I look like I've been having a lengthy, emotionally involved chat with a base-ball. I've arranged to meet people. To shave or not to shave?  Hmm. Fig 4. 

 Nick Nolte's LAPD mugshot on a DUI charge? Christ. It's time to properly strop the Wilkinson. I look like a badly poured Guinness. I've had enough. Fig 5. 

Yeah, I'm back. Rico Fucking Suave. What have I learned? Beards are fine for covering disfigurement. Beyond that I'm keeping clean shaven. My friend Shauna told me that ALL men look better with a beard. I confronted her with the evidence, and she agreed I'm an anomaly. I am the last clean shaven man in Europe. You're all cowards, hiding your ugly faces under hair, like a lamp with a weak chin under a grotesquely matted bushel. I admit to this face. I've earned it. Now you're all going to suffer for it. LOOK AT MY FACE. LOOK. LOOK AT IT. The horror, the horror. 

*Faceache initially appeared in "Jet" comic. But I never read "Jet" comic. Faceache was born the same year as I was.