A Ragged Thief

I think the word ragged most adeptly describes my current appearance. By now I am out of the "he forgot to shave phase" and am quickly moving into the "is it man or beast phase". Today also marks the point in time that I believe is the longest I have gone without shaving. The irony in all of this is that I really do not notice my level of unkemptness unless I am parked in front of a mirror. However, every once in a while I will pass a reflective surface and be startled by the bearded hooligan staring back at me.

Yesterday marked my first public incident with the beard. I use a credit union for my banking that does not have a lot of convenient branches around Columbus. However, credit unions do something called shared banking where you can stop at any entity within the network and transact normal business. Yesterday, I stopped into a branch of a credit union near our house that I had never been into before.

Now, it just so happens that this particular branch is in a pretty well-to-do area, and I apparently stopped in just before they closed at 4:30. While I was oblivious to this at the time, imagine the reaction of the four elderly female employees when a unshaven and frazzled looking dude walks into their shop for the first time in recorded history. Compound this with the fact that I was carrying in a single check and that I was wearing a T-shirt and no jacket on a day where the temperature was well below freezing. In retrospect, I now believe that what I thought was just their annoyance with someone walking in right before closing time, may actually have been some very tense nerves from the quartet of remaining tellers.