For a long time, almost as long as I've known him, Supernerd has sported a beard. It's one of those ginger brown beards, with a moustache, longer on his chin and shorter on his cheeks.
He outsources the maintenance of his beard to Sam, his barber. Actually, he should properly be referred to as Sam-the-barber, as in our household following an ancient tradition, his name describes his occupation.
So for nearly twenty years his naked chin had not seen the light of day. Until yesterday.
He would never have shaved it off unless he had to. But he had to.
Why?
Because he landed himself a part in a short film in which he is required to play no less than five different characters, and those characters are to be differentiated by their relative amounts of facial hair.
On Friday morning he was a disgruntled slob with his entire beard intact, and clothed completely in carefully selected items from his own wardrobe, about which he is disturbingly proud.
On Friday afternoon he was a bullying boss with his cheek whiskers gone, in his own suit and a brand new business shirt. We still laugh when we remember how once Supernerd hung his suit jacket up near the front door and our children refused to believe that it was his, claiming it must belong to our friend Martin who sometimes comes to visit straight from work.
Then yesterday morning the chin whiskers came off leaving a moustache down to his jawline and he was a horrible dad, and then after one last shave he was the clean-shaven mate of the main character.
Now we've known for a bit over a week that this was going to happen, but I don't think I was really prepared and I'm just amazed at how much of a difference shaving off those whiskers has made.
In two days Supernerd has transformed from himself into someone who looked a lot like his uncle, and then into someone I've never seen before, and that's very very weird.
When he first grew his whiskers I complained. They were scratchy and went up my nose when he kissed me. But now, oh my goodness, I can't wait until they grow back.
