I fully admit that it was my fault. I was micromanaging. Water boiling for instant mac & cheese on the stove, and I had to rush out the door, so he was taking over the mac & cheese prep. & I was all “make sure you do it this way,” “don’t do it this way,” etc.

Because fr, have you ever made those annie’s white shells, in the purple box?! It’s trickier than you think. If you don’t sprinkle the powder just so and whisk it a certain way and scrape the pan a certain way, it clumps up and you don’t get a creamy sauce. You get a separated, vomitous mess. And my sweet husband, being a man, doesn’t like to follow instructions, and prefers to just feel his way through things. And i wanted our kids to have a decent dinner (because yeah, instant mac qualifies as a decent dinner, in our house).

So anyway that’s my excuse.

He took it as patronizing and condescending, like what, you think I can’t make instant mac?, you think i’m incapable of basic tasks?? which is fair; it’s true, i did not think that he was capable of making instant mac. For a few minutes we were doing this little semi-serious verbal dance like “i’m not mad, i just…” and half-joking “all I meant was…” and then i left.

he was still simmering when i got home an hour or so later, so we did a few more minutes of the “i’m not mad, i just” “all i meant was” and then he abruptly goes upstairs for a “shower”, which takes longer than usual. and when he emerges from the bathroom… his beard, his beautiful beard… is gone.

No shouting, no insults or profanities, just my husband’s pink chin, bare and smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Now, my husband is a handsome and healthy man of 40 years old, and normally, bearded, he looks maybe mid-thirties. but beardless he looks about 22. I’m 36 and look every minute of it. so when he shaves, it makes me look like a dirty cougar next to him. like a leonardo dicaprio.

He’s done this once before, shaving his beard out of spite. That was years ago, in that townhome, in the before-kids era. I don’t remember what that fight was about. I’m sure i deserved it that time too.

Both times he’s insisted he didn’t shave out of spite. He insists it was just a coincidence. It was just time for the beard to go.

but I know better.

“Irrational,” he calls me. I call it highly intuitive. He says I make up stories and bend logic to suit my imagined order of events. I call it seeing obvious connections. We actually love each other very much.

I did admit that i am a control freak and a micromanager. He did admit that the instant cheese sauce clumped up and separated because he wasn’t listening. Apologies were exchanged.

But apologies cannot bring back the beard. Some wounds, only time can heal. Sometimes you just have to let the instant mac be clumpy.