Dan Shaves His Beard

My husband, Dan, chose his birthday this year to have midlife crisis. It wasn't that dramatic of midlife crisis. He didn't spend all of our money on a red sports car or have an affair with a porn star or anything. But after thirteen years of some kind of facial hair, he shaved it all off.

On Dan's forty-second birthday, I arrived home from work to find him standing in the garage without a beard. 

“WHAT?!” I exclaimed. "WHAT?!"

Dan and I have been married for fifteen years. I barely remembered what he looked like without a beard. I had bought him a Mountaineer Beard Kit for his birthday, hoping he would get his Grizzly Adams look under control. That turned out to be unnecessary.

O. Henry couldn't have written it better.

Dan's beard kept us from getting carded. I don't mean to brag, but I've been known to get carded when Dan and his gray-streaked beard aren't with me.

One afternoon, I was buying Guinness for St Patrick's Day, mostly for Dan, and the clerk asked to see my I.D. (Guys, I'm forty-one years old!)

"Wow, you look fabulous!" the cashier said.

Now it is Dan who looks twenty. How is that possible? I am convinced that his beard stunted his aging process.

Dan's midlife crisis soon became the talk around town, or at least around our small circle of friends and family.

"I heard about the 'Dan-formation,'" one of our friends said one Sunday morning.

"I think he wanted to shave it all off and start over," I explained. "He keeps talking about growing a summer beard, whatever that is."

"Oh yes," our friend, who was donning a bit of facial hair himself, nodded knowingly. "A summer beard is a real thing."

"Except, Dan has forgotten how long it took to grow his first goatee. I don't know if a summer beard is going to happen." 

My aunt posted an article on my Facebook wall about beards having more bacteria than dog fur. Beardless Dan was becoming more and more appealing. 

At work, Dan got all sorts of surprised looks and "Whoa's!"

One co-worker told him, "Don't take this the wrong way," (never a good sign) "but you kind of look like an elf."

"Maybe he means you look like Orlando Bloom," I suggested. "Besides, looking like an elf is a huge compliment coming from a software engineer nerd."

Personally, I think Dan looks even more like Kurt Cobain now. People tell him that he looks like the Nirvana frontman all the time.

And for this forty-one year-old, who came of age in the nineties, that's not a bad comparison.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.