Requiring assistance to bathe and dress is profoundly humiliating for a proud man. Fortunately I am not a proud man. In fact, I rather enjoy the pampering and extra attention. After all, a skilled professional washing your armpits and extremeties is surely one of life's great joys.
Initiates in the Bacchian Mysteries of Ancient Greece must have experienced similar cleansing pleasures when being ritually purified by their high priests, except I'm just going to lounge in bed all day watching Antiques Roadshow after my scrub-down, rather than dancing myself dizzy and sacrificing a bull while screaming obscenities into an ear of corn.
But I draw a very distinct line when it comes to somebody else shaving my face. The chin is sacred ground as far as I'm concerned: it should not be desecrated by some over-talkative, razor-wielding maniac who thinks he knows in which direction your stubble grows, even if his razor does feature two lubricating strips and an omni-adjustable head. I will either shave myself or cultivate a beard of Victorian proportions, no matter how much it itches and prickles and looks ridiculous hanging beneath my hairless head.
And so, since I suffer from restricted movement, most of my post-operative period has been spent observing five o'clock shadow sprout into eleventh hour facial hair. Alas, instead of endowing my appearance with an aura of Socratic wisdom and sagacity, my new beard makes me seem like the sort of sad, middle-aged buffoon who attends Renaissance Fayres dressed as a desperately unfunny court jester whom even kids find boring. What was I saying earlier about not being a proud man?
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