Beard Trimming 101

I went to Texas this weekend. It was a bit of a rushed trip, seeing that I left Friday morning and got back home Sunday afternoon. I went to meet my mom and take her and a few of her friends to their class reunion. So I meet them in Humble, outside of Houston, load them up in my car, then drive to Madisonville. Madisonville is the closest town that has a motel. It's also the Mushroom Capitol of Texas.

So Friday and Saturday is spent driving around visiting family. We also met with a funeral director and finalized the details about when my grandmother and uncle pass. My grandmother is getting older and has some health challenges. My uncle has some health challenges too.

Speaking of my uncle, I know you might find it hard to believe, but he's quite a character. He's the only boy in a family of four kids so he was spoiled rotten as a kid. He's still a rotten kid. When I walk into his house, he says something about how he's gotta clean up his language now that I've walked in. I tell him he better. We have that kind of a friendship. He tries to tell a dirty joke, I cut him off midway about how he's not old enough to be telling dirty jokes. We've done it for years. It's now a tradition for the two of us. But he does really try to clean up his language while I'm there. After we are there for a few minutes, he turns to me and says, "Big Al. Do you have a steady hand?" I reply with a, "Depends on what you want me to do." He then says, "Will you trim my mustache? There are a pair of scissors on the windowsill."

He's asking me to trim his mustache because he can't. Physically, he can't. He was in a car wreck when I was young. He's paralyzed all along his left side. Which means he's got the use of his right hand, and a bit of his right leg, but that's it. Now, I've never trimmed a man's mustache before, but I was going to get a crash course in men's facial hair trimming. So I get his little comb, tell him to roll out to the porch hair doesn't go everywhere, grab the scissors, and start chopping. I start out going real slow because I'm not sure how to do it, but by the end of it, I was pretty comfortable giving him a trim. And he liked it, so that was cool. I was kinda proud of myself actually. He definitely looked less bushy.

The only challenge was him not laughing while I was two inches from his face with a pair of scissors...