Honestly, the chops weren’t working for me. I’ve never been a person with a wealth of facial hair and conventional sideburns have usually been my physical limit. The chops were coming in very unevenly and were honestly not as pleasant as I had hoped. But, more than that, I really wasn’t like them that much.

I didn’t shave them off because people had entreated me to. And I didn’t refuse their comments on the basis to retain some clutched inner dignity that I might have. To have given in and shaved them could have been a sign of weakness of personal character or “identity”. To have refused shaving them would be a sign of belligerent pride in light of other’s opinions. I shaved them off without any regard to the thoughts of others, although I appreciated their sentiments on both sides.

Further, I actually shaved them off Thursday morning. The date on my most recent webcam shot is yesterday evening when I arrived back from work. I was truly aggravated with them and went ahead and took the razor to them that morning. A clean and honorable end, I would say.

BTW, I am reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. You should change your last name to “Rand” because then you would be the greatest author of the 1940s.

As surely as you have listened to all of these weak sisters and chopped off your incipient manly muttonchops, just as surely have you hunkered down and chopped off your own balls.