I’m good at spotting trends. For example, yesterday I was at a hotel pool and
saw an older guy with a ponytail and a hairy chest. He was a generally hairy
guy. But his back was evidently shaved. Except for. . . Wait for it. . .
A back beard.
It was more of a goatee, actually. Right in the middle of his back. It was hip
and stylish, I thought, as I hurled into my towel.
I had to look several times to be sure my eyes were not deceiving me. God, I
wish they had been. Yes, it was a back beard, not an extension of the ponytail,
not a birthmark, not a shadow. A frickin’ back beard.
I suppose a person grows that sort of thing to get attention. It worked. I tried
looking at other things, but it was physically impossible. I will try to explain
my feeling with an analogy: It was like watching Satan humping a porcupine
without lubrication. Horrible, yet impossible to look away.
So if you asked me about my holiday time in the sun, I would not recall the nice
weather, the charming people, or the sights. All I would remember is a porcupine
being violated by a flaming devil dong, or something just like it.
I hated myself for wondering if he trims it himself or if he has an accomplice
in this crime against humanity. And what would it take to get someone to trim a
back beard? I assume that money and threats of physical harm would not be
enough. No, somewhere there is a trimmer of back beards who has a relative in a
small windowless prison. And not just a cousin, because I think we’d all let a
cousin die to avoid trimming a back beard.
But back to my original point — I don’t see back beards becoming a trend.