When I went to college my grandmother gave me an electric razor, because, you know, I was all grown up. I remember my roommate mocking me when I used it. “It’s supposed to make a cutting sound,” he’d say and then demonstrate by holding his razor to his face so I could hear all the little hairs being chopped. When I did the same, you could only hear the whir of the razor.

After college, I still wasn’t having much luck cultivating any growth in the beard area. My boss in England quite cruelly (I thought) referred once to my facial hair as “bum fluff.”

Soon after that, Rolando and I got a new apartment and we were going through the usual inventory of what we could bring to the place. “I got a coffee machine.” “I have a toaster.” Etc. I volunteered that I had one of those supposedly fog-proof mirrors for the shower for shaving. My roommie made a comment like, “I don’t use a mirror; I know where my beard is.”

I don’t think I’ve used a mirror in the shower since then. And though I do have more facial hair than I did freshman year, evidently I still haven’t figured out where it is. I shaved in the shower this morning and in the middle of getting dressed, rubbed my chin and was… not surprised exactly, more like eye-rollingly annoyed to find half my chin still fuzzy.

Someday, I’ll get it all and manage not to nick myself in the process.