Adam Reger | Freelance Writer

The time has come to get rid of the mangy beard I have been cultivating since the great snow event of February. Some time this week or over the weekend, it’s happening. It’s a feeling I’m waiting for, a moment whose rightness will be self-evident. Also, I keep forgetting to buy shaving cream.

But, towards bucking me up to just do it, a list of portentous beard-shaving scenes from movies. I’m not sure I like the suggestion that these are symbolically weighty (and thus that my ditching the beard will be, too), because things have gone well with the beard; I suspect, though I imagine it would be impossible to prove, that men with beards get more respect in Pittsburgh than without (it’ s just that kind of town).