When I woke up this morning, I had some expectations of how the day would go.  I anticipated my geriatric feline resident to immediately cry out over not having food in her bowl.  I eagerly pined for that first black cup of coffee.  The cup was not black, the coffee was.  Just in case you need that sort of detail and were confused by my order word unconventional of use.  But as long as this all makes sense even if you have to unscramble the words in each sentence like a less challenging and sinister version of the Zodiac letters, that is my hope.  Before I was rudely interrupted by myself, I wanted to mention my expectation this morning that my 5 year old would complain in one way or another about the preparation of his daily cereal.  And he did not disappoint.  He demanded I allow him to help pour from the nearly full gallon of milk.  This was better than many other times when he chooses to yell at me if I don’t gather the items at a speed that suits him.  Between you, me and Dupree, it doesn’t matter how quickly, accurately, or impersonally I do this task when he wakes up with that stick firmly plugging his anus.  No matter the circumstances, at times he cannot be pacified, even by Vin Diesel.

What I did not expect as I gracefully rolled out of bed this morning was the part of the day in which I would find myself trying to pull gum out of my beard.  So clearly, if you are following the words in that sentence, you have noted that I did not put the gum there on purpose.  Otherwise that would have been part of the plan and not unexpected.  But, as David Byrne would sing, “And you might ask yourself…how did I get here?”  Well, I wish it was a better or more exciting story.  

I was driving from one patient’s house to the next, minding my own business and listening to an audiobook because I don’t read good and our small village preferred spoken stories about songbirds, oral oriel anecdotes if you please.  And now that I spent the effort to get out that dumb joke, I have lost my place.  Ah yes, I was driving and I decided the spearmint gum in my mouth had overstayed its welcome.  I started to remove it from my mouth and barely, BARELY grazed the uppermost hairs of my beard below my bottom lip.  Then the unexpected came to pass.  Part of the gum immediately glued itself to a few of the hairs and stayed there when I pulled the gum away.  I placed the gum with some other trash and reached for the site of the incident.  I slid my fingers (pointer and thumbkin as the cool kids say) expecting to remove the gum residue from the hairs.  Instead of that working like a charm, it felt like I was pulling my hairs out which was painful and the act resulted in the group of hairs sticking straight out from my face like an upper chin spike.  I have never been known for advancements in fashion or appearance, but today I created a totally new look.  And yet it would all be for nought because I wear a mask most of the time, thus it wouldn’t be seen by the public.

  

Eventually, I found a method to remove the tuft of hairs.  Scissors.  That old classic standby.  Tried and true they are and as long as my beard didn’t throw out rock, I was going to conquer the gum.  I lost about six beard hairs in the fray.  Though I won the war, I can’t help but ask was it worth the cost?  And why did that gum meld with my beard so fast?  Glad I didn’t swallow it and bind up my intestinal villi.