COLUMN: Nicked nose

The past couple of years I've spent a great deal of time with a beard.

Every so often I would let it get a little too long and perhaps look more like a Grizzly Adams than a newspaper guy. It is just really convenient to have a beard. I don't have to worry about shaving in the morning and it means more time in my warm bed. I know there are a lot of morning people out there in the world, but I am not one of them. I literally time my morning routine so I can get in the shower, pet the cats, and leave. There is no time for shenanigans.

I started growing my last beard in January. By around the start of March it was starting to get pretty thick and by the middle of the month it was a sight to see.

This was around the time when the beard really starts itch, starts to curl strangely, and starts collecting food with each meal. I'm sure I could have probably bought some fancy beard gel or maybe trimmed it in the mornings, but once again this takes away from that warm bed.

On the last Sunday of March, I woke up and was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I looked at my beard and saw a giant chunk or what appeared to be chicken in my beard. The weird part was that I had not had chicken since Friday so that thing had been living in my beard for a couple days.

That was the last straw of two-year beard faze. I was completely over it. No longer did I want to deal with the grey in the beard, random chicken, and the weird itching that usually happened in the middle night.

At this point I decided it was time to tackle the beard which was going to be a chore. I grabbed the trash can and held it with one arm while I attempted to trim the beard with the other. This has become a go to move because when I don't use the trash can the hair gets onto the sink and I spend hours trying to pick them up but instead just end up spreading them in the opposite direction. It's tricky with one hand and I once dropped the trash can on my bare foot, but it usually gets the job done. This time however was a bit of a chore. When the trimming was done, I had to go through a couple razors just to get to clean shave.

I felt great until I looked at my hair. I had these weird side burns with a near "Beatles" like cut. It was atrocious. I finally had escaped the beard and now I looked like an idiot. After seeing the way, I looked clean shaven with the hair I wanted to get some glue and put the beard back on.

Luckily, I was able to get my hair cut and was now looking forward to having a "clean cut" look.

I was going to shave every day of the week for the first time since my hair didn't have gray.

I didn't even mind the fact that I would get up a little bit earlier.

This was a great idea in theory.

Somehow along the line I forgot the finer aspects of shaving. It certainly was not like riding a bike.

The first day I set forth to shave was a disaster. I somehow managed to cut my nose shaving. Any cut shaving is a real disaster, but the nose was as bad as I've ever had. There was blood everywhere and it would not stop bleeding. What started out as a 10-minute shaved turned into a three-hour long process trying to get the cut to stop bleeding.

All I wanted was a clean-shaven face and instead it looked like I got punched square in the nose by Conor McGregor.

As I was trying to stop the bleeding, I looked down at my bathroom trash can and saw some of the hair from by beard. There was a moment I wish I would have just left it and not shaved.

I wouldn't be standing in the bathroom trying to stop my nose from bleeding.

Then I remembered it was time for a change, and shaking things up a bit never hurts, well except for maybe a nose.