My brush with tricophobia

I am in the midst of a rather nasty experience that I am not much enjoying – growing a beard.
Apart from the fact that my face is now covered with an ugly mix of ginger/grey whiskers, and that people tend to regularly dry-retch in disgust when they catch a glimpse of me – I am sick to death of it and am looking forward to finally shaving it off.
If I am really honest, the main reason I have kept it going this long (about two months as I write) has been the perverse and illogical sense of enjoyment I gain from other people telling me they just do not like my new furry face. However, the more they express their pogonophohia sentiments – the more I want to stick to my unkempt, hirsute look.
My journey towards my version of Grizzly Adams began a couple of months ago when – ironically enough – I cut myself shaving. So after a weekend of giving the daily ritual of shearing my face a miss, all of a sudden a few days growth had appeared and the idea of sprouting a beard came to fruition.
Despite some 42-odd years on this planet – and a shaving career spanning more than half this period – I had never seriously before contemplated sporting a beard. This is mainly due to the unfortunate fact that my hitherto life-long mission of suppressing the cruel reality that I am a ginga would have been instaneously destroyed – with the evidence of this most unpleasant truth literally all over my face.
It is a terrible thing to spend one’s entire life denying the fact the good Lord (or in this case, a vengeful and spiteful God) has cursed one with auburn locks.
No matter how you cut it, the fact is that being a red head is an absolute handicap in today’s world. In reality, red or ginga is the new black – as in the latest line of humanity that is oppressed by the majority.
But to be fair (which is not meant as a crack against my strawberry blond fellows propensity for having pale skin), views about red-haired people have never really been very complimentary.
In ancient history, red heads were said to: “sweat easily, bleed copiously, have a strong foxy smell, and such bad breath that they can raise blisters on other people simply by breathing over them. Morally, they are expected to be ‘bad children’ who cause nothing but trouble; they will be hot-tempered, treacherous, and highly sexed.” Even according to medieval lore, bad buggers such as Judas, Cain, and Mary Magdalene were all red-heads. The notion of the evilness of read hair was even carried over into conventions for stage villains; with Shylock regularly given a red wig.
Fast forward a few hundred years, and the persecution of red haired people has continued unabated. They are regularly mocked in advertising, jokes and via school yard abuse. Derogatory terms such as: Ginger Nut; Ginga; Blood nut; Period Head; Fanta Pants and ‘Ranga (as in Orangutan) are all common taunts for people carrying various mutated versions of the MC1R gene.
So it’s no wonder I want to go back to my clean-skinned past as soon as possible. To cut – and that is what I intend doing with this bloody beard very soon – a long story short – old man’s beard must go – as fellow bearded git and botanist Dr David Bellamy used to say.
Now here comes the plug. I have decided to use my hair-raising antics to do some fund raising on behalf of kids with cancer. I've set up a web page at http://www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/davidanderson/
So I am asking the tiny readership of this blog to come support me as I participate in funrazor 2009 in an effort to raise funds for Child Cancer Foundation.
Hell it might even help dispel some peoples’ prejudices about red heads being evil – then again it probably won't!