Bring Out the Goat

Women think they have a pretty easy solution for dealing with a skin blemish.

All they do is apply some makeup, or strategically style their hair, and voila! the blemish is gone. (No, that’s not a sweeping generalization or stereotype. Not at all. Ha ha ha.)

Well, I like to think men have just as simple a solution. It’s a game I like to call “Fun with Facial Hair!” (Yes, the exclamation point is part of the trademarked name.)

Take me, for example.

Thanks to my latest sunburn, I’ve got a strip of pretty sensitive skin just above my upper lip.

So how have I dealt with it? By letting my goatee grow in again.

Now, you see, goatees and me have a funny relationship: generally, I don’t like them — on me or on other people (especially women).

And yet, from time to time I get in that lazy mode and decide to let my own grow in for a week or two.

I’m told it actually looks quite good on me, so I tend to keep it on longer than I intend to.

But really, I know I just don’t rock the goatee as well as, say, Ben Affleck, who lets his grow in all the time.

(Hmmmmm … does that mean Jennifer Garner likes ’em? Let me reconsider my thoughts on goatees for a minute … Interesting. Never really thought too hard about that. Maybe I should keep mine permanently. Will that draw her to me? It’s worth a shot. Hmmmmmmm.)

Anyway, so this week I’ve got a goatee.

I wish I could say it was masking my entire sunburn, but thankfully I’ve got shirts that do that just fine. (And wouldn’t it be scary if I was that hairy?!)

Still, the hair around my mouth seems to be doing the trick. No more irritated skin in the early morning when I take a sharp razor to my face while I’m still half asleep.

So even if growing a goatee is just a short-term solution to my problem, it’s still a solution.

And now that I think about it, if it brings me one step closer to Jennifer Garner, well … who am I to complain?

Maybe next time I’ll grow one without having a sunburn.