12 Days of Mugger ~ Day 4

The Blade

Mugger and Aj were the Best Men at my wedding. All wedding activities took place in Philadelphia over a Labor Day weekend. The bachelor party was a booze soaked bowling night with my closest friends, organized and facilitated by my cousins. Since having experienced my cousins bachelor parties in New Orleans and Las Vegas respectively, I now feel that I may have UNDERshot somewhat on my own bachelor party. Nevertheless it was a truly epic night and pound for pound I’m not sure any of us were more stumble-down-drunk in New Orleans or Vegas as we were at that bowling alley after a quick-draw two hour open bar.

The next day was our rehearsal dinner etc and that night I gave some of my closet friends a slip of paper simply saying "Meet in the Lobby tomorrow morning. 9:30 sharp. Don’t Shave." Sometimes when you think of an idea it sounds so great in your head that you could barely contain your own genius-ness. And then when you begin to facilitate that idea and watch it play out, it’s like witnessing a slow train slide off the tracks and into the Deleware River.

This is kind of how this idea was...

At 9:30 on the morning of my wedding, my groomsmen and some friends loaded into a van and drove over to a barber shop in south Philadelphia for a single blade shave. The place was classic old school South Philly and run by a Father and Son since the late 40s. There were 8x10 framed photos of Italian celebratees from the neighborhood and a soundtrack of Philadelphia crooners like Mario Lanza and Bobby Rydell. I called and made all the arrangements and they treated us to some coffee and donuts before lining us up and making us all bleed from our face.

My only act of grace at this point was to go first. I strongly believe now that they brought the old man out of retirement for this gig and they just hoped that the muscle memory would kick in once he picked up his single blade and started scraping away. I figured if anyone was to get slit first it should be me. Mugger was next and watching cautiously as the old man started to nick away at my cheeks and throat. It was the closest and worst shave I ever had. I walked away from the barber chair with enough red-dotted tissue on my chin you’d thought my face just lost a steel cage fencing duel. The worst part was having to sit there now and watch all my friends and family slowly get slaughtered one by one to the upbeat sound of Louis Prima.

I do believe that the old man settled in as I’d hoped he would and the last shaves were much better than his first shaves. Before AJ got up there, I was literally pleading with him not to get shaved. We had this cool experience, it was the ultimate photo OP, but now let’s call it a day. Truth is, nobody really wanted to miss this opportunity to get a single blade shave including AJ. It was like some brutal rite of passage at this point and he took his nicks and scratches with pride,,, just like the rest of us.

At the wedding, we had a photo of Kristen and I with a mat board that our guests could sign. Everyone wrote the niceties you’d expect and wished us luck. Mugger wrote, “Thanks for the shave! I had too much blood anyway!”