Pickles by Brian Crane for April 19, 2023

This is true. If a guy has had a mustache and maybe a beard for years. When they shave it off. They will look very different.

Slap a wig on him and he’d look just like Opal.

Just like I said yesterday on ArcaMax – shave off the blue stained mustache and start over…

Now he can tell barefaced lies.

LIke him so much better without the mustache and he even looks younger.

He went down the drain with blue beard.

When my little sister was about 3-ish, my dad shaved off his mustache and her reaction was about the same as Opal’s. Just louder. More frantic. A little more of a life and death scenario. For the rest of us it was quite comical. Tru story!

Shocking! I love his ’stache.

It can remove a decade off your perceived age too!

I remember when I was a little boy my mother had gone to the hairdresser and had her hair dyed blonde. I cried buckets—to me that had not been my mother. I had no peace until she dyed it back to her original hair colour. My mother had been deeply intrigued by the fact that I had been so upset over it all.

ok Opal…

now go shave YOUR moustache

Reminds me of a Maupassant short story…. . https://www.online-literature.com/maupassant/257/ .

What about those soldiers standing at attention up on top???

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

I had been married for a couple of years when I decided to shave my beard off. I used to do that every couple of years. So I sat down to dinner with my wife, who was reading something. I got her attention, and she just stared at my face for a while. Then she said, “Don’t ever do that again!” with some vehemence. So I had to regrow it again. That was more than 44 years ago.

Now, how will he dust off cookies? Nothing is worse than Opal’s dusty cookies.

Someone suggested that yesterday

i had never seen my husband without a beard, not even a picture of him as an adult. i came home from work and there was this smooth-faced stranger kissing me. i made him show me his scar before i believed him. i screamed so loud my neighbors nearly called the cops, except their daughter said no, he only shaved off his beard.

Sometimes, it takes a minute! Our friend has always had a beard, shaved it off, and we could not figure out what was different about him for about ten minutes lol!

It’ll grow back!

I had a goatee for several years. One day I decided to shave it off. My wife didn’t notice for three days. I still don’t know what to think about that.

Been there, done that… :)

Made me laugh! My husband had a mustache and when he saw the wedding photos, he shaved it off. It took me a couple minutes to figure out what was different! ;-D

Oh it’s not so bad Earl. But I know you hope it grows back in very fast. My husband did that once in our first year and I didn’t like it, he grew it back.

The mustache is gone!

Earl how will you strain your soup ?

Lucyrudy called it yesterday

I shaved my beard for a role in a community theatre production. The next morning I woke up to my wife staring at me and smiling. She said “Darn, for a minute there I thought I was fooling around.”

You’d think Opal would be happy if it was another man.

Scratch it shall be. I heard that itches a lot.

Roscoe won’t know him!

God that’s cursed.

Been there, done that.

Kind of like Captain Kangaroo with out his mustache.

\\//_

I never noticed the size of Earl’s nose.

YIKES.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I suspect if you have had facial hair for a very long time and then shave it off, it will look odd with the very white skin underneath (if Caucasian of course) against the rest of the face with a slightly different colour.

Dang now I don’t recognize Earl either

so that’s what he looks like without his mustache, huh.

Holy moly!

I wonder how long it will take for the artist to draw it back.

Frankly, I hate beards…makes one look scruffy

He looks younger

I shaved off my moustache when I retired from the army, intending to grow a moustache and a beard from scratch (pardon the pun). My granddaughter started crying and my wife threatened me with physical harm if I didn’t grow it back immediately. Too much face, she complained!

When our oldest was just about two, I shaved off my beard and mustache. (The only time in my life before or since I have had one) The oldest would not come near me for almost the whole night. We had to play peek-a-boo in the dark before he realized it was me.

Will it have grown back by tomorrow.

Is earl tryin’to kill opal? The shock alone could do it….

Shaved my mustache off one time and my wife never noticed for days, thought there was something strange but could not put her finger on it. Embarrassed her no end.

I’ve had a mustache since I was first able to grow one. I’ve only shaved it off twice in my life – once when I first entered the army and again in 1996 when I lost a bet and shaved my beard and mustache off for a charity event.

My mother always hated my handle-bar mustache and beard/goatee. She was always on me to shave it off. So I was sure she’d be thrilled when I sent her a picture of my newly naked face back in 1996, saying " Here’s the son you haven’t seen for 32 years.“

Her tersely worded, immediate response was, " GROW IT BACK!! "

I’ve known guys who shaved off their mustache and grew it back because they messed up the symmetry while trimming, so Earl’s solution isn’t out of the ordinary.

When my husband shaved off his mustache it was too revealing.

I shaved off my mustache when it turned gray in my 30s, even though the rest of my hair stayed dark. However, I have curly hair and I let it grow out again because too many people were calling me “miss”. :)

In the early 90’s, I got a perm and when I came home, my then one year old daughter started to cry until I convinced her I was still Mommy!!

My late wife tried for years to get me to get rid of MY beard. Told her, as a woman, she never had to go through ‘n deal with “razor bumps” as I did when joining the USAF in ’61. Believe me, tried ’em all: blades, electric, straight, and they never went away for the longest time. For you men that read this, KNOW what I’m talking about!

He actually looks younger!

When my ex shaved his moustache when we were younger, it was so weird I couldn’t stand to kiss him. Of course looking back, I should never have kissed him in the first place. 40 years wasted on him. LOL

It will probably have grown back by Sunday (maybe Saturday).

Obviously a too early harvested pod-person.

My wife of 33+ years has never known me without my mustache

I had a mustache for 30 ears and my wife convinced me to shave it off, first time we kissed after I shaved it she couldn’t stop laughing because it felt funny.

I shave mine off once and my youngest daughter had never seen me clean shaven. When I came to breakfast she took one look at me and said “Your not my daddy!”

When my childhood best friends, a pair of sisters, saw that their dad shaved, the eldest of the two screamed, “YOU’RE NOT MY DAD!!!” Now, whenever MY dad shaves, me, my sister and my mom all scream it! (He was my dad’s second best friend at the time and we four grew up together until our teens roughly.)

Nice face Earl! you do look younger!

I hope Earl has learned a lesson about not chewing ink pens. ;-D

I did that on July 1 of our first year up here. Wanted to start my Canadian beard on Canada Day.

When my son was six, I shaved off my beard (for the first and only time). He was shocked and said, “Dad, you have a chin!”

The beard has come and gone several times, but the upper lip was bare for only one day in the last 47 years. And that was in the summer of 1987.

After 10 years of beard and moustache, my hubby shaved it all off. I was stunned, but our 6-year-old came into the room and shouted, “It’s a joke, right, Dad? It’ll grow back!”

My ex has a mustache. And you have to keep it trimmed when you’re in the military. While he was trimming it, he pretty much botched it and had to shave it off. He came and got me after work and I just kept staring at him. I couldn’t figure it out. It didn’t help that he was blond and his mustache was very blonde. It got to the point he’s like, what???? I said, there’s something different. And that’s when he said that he had to shave it off because he messed up.

Yesterday I suggested Earl should shave it off. Thanks B Crane for listening!

I’m wondering how the rest of Earl’s clan will react. Will Nelson say, “You’re not my Grandpa!” Will Muffin arch her back hissing with extended claws? Will Roscoe tuck his tail ‘twixt his legs and go a’skitter’n across the floor and hide under the couch?

Oh dear. Good thing he’ll likely have a new one by tomorrow. However, it is making him look younger. Guys who shave off their well known moustache often look like they have a weak chin or strange lip. LOL

Have had a stash for more than 50 years I shaved it off my wife freaked out my kids thought I lost my mind.

Love all the amusing stories posted here of facial hair cultivation! Some remind me of an old Sergio Aragones strip from Mad magazine, showing a man shaving his very full beard right after getting married. Bride’s face falls when she sees the chinless wonder for the first time; I’ve always assumed she insisted he grow it back.

I’ve had my mustache since I was old enough to grow one; never shaved it off. The beard was a little tougher; it took longer to fully come into its own. Since 1978 I’ve only shaved it off twice, once after having it for about a year (for the life of me, I can’t remember why) and again in 2017, for a three-week seasonal job. I hate shaving, so I was very happy when the job ended, and I immediately started it growing it back (but I had my wife take several pictures of how I looked during this bout of beardus interruptus, just for posterity). The only significant change since then is that I didn’t trim or shape it for five or six weeks when I was sick with Covid in 2021, and when it was over I looked like a true caveman. When I felt better I fixed it up, but with a somewhat fuller look than it had before. Oh yeah, in the last few years more gray has gradually infiltrated; can’t do much about that.

Old saying: “A kiss without a moustache is like an egg without salt.” (I wouldn’t know.)

I’ve been married 50+ years, my wife has only seen without my mustache twice, I had to regrow it ASAP.

Egad!!!

I can relate to this. I haven’t had a clean shaven face since April 1970, when I was discharged from the Marines.