The hot shave. Not a particularly helpful moniker if you’re trying to unlock its mystery. Cold shaves are only a thing for the masochistic few. Even with just plain shaves there’s an expectation of some heat to open the pores and shear them whiskers. Indeed, we’ve evolved from the cowboy countenance care of water and a Bowie knife.

But to some degree we’ve evolved too far. When I was a young man, I wasn’t introduced to a hot shave, but a cheap Bic razor and a Barbosol can. Shaving became utilitarian, jettisoning any possibility of relaxation or facial appreciation for the man.

The hot shave returns a man to simpler times. Prior to being shaved, a hot towel is wrapped around the man’s head, allowing him to relax, have his pores opened and his face ready to receive a very sharp blade to shear his stubble smooth as butter.

Not every barber offers a hot shave. It’s a lost art – men aren’t looking for it. But I was. My buddy Jason and I were ready to expand our masculinity and have another man give us a very hot shave. But we’d have to look for it.

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We’d heard word of a barber bar in an adjacent town called “Revelry,” where presumably men could disappear for a day playing pool and checkers, drinking beer, getting haircuts, and if they wanted – a hot shave.

Both of us had prepared for the hot shave, choosing not to pick up a razor for several days. Jason was especially unshorn and couldn’t wait to part with his scratchy patches.

As we walked up to Revelry, only moments from our first ever hot shave, a few smoking men standing outside informed us that they were having an opening anniversary party that day, and would not be cutting hair.

It’s odd to go to an open barber shop and be told your hair won’t be cut. That’s like going to an open ice cream parlor and being told you can’t have ice cream, or an open rental car shop and being told there are no cars to drive.

But we couldn’t make them give us a hot shave. These were manly men with an astounding assortment of tats, noserings, and cigarettes, not to mention skilled pros in brandishing blades. If they didn’t want to shave us by golly I was going to be okay with that.

Sadly, similar establishments around town were booked for the day and similarly rejected our requests for a hot shave. We’d have to shave ourselves, grow back our whiskers, and return in a few weeks.

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Indeed our whiskers regrew and we were poised to return to Revelry Barber Shop on a day they were in fact barbering. This time we were joined by our friend Dave, who was supportive of our adventure and no stranger himself to the hot shave. Upon arrival we wandered around and pointed at things for a few minutes until someone told us how this whole hot shave business went down.

One of the barbers pointed to a sign-in sheet with many names on it, and told us what most people do is sign in and go run some errands and come back. He told us he could probably get to us around 6:30. It was 2:15.

I’m not sure what kind of father and husband is allowed to be away from the house that long “running errands” but I knew I wasn’t one of them. Jason obligatorily signed the sheet, just in case aliens came and miraculously exterminated all the men who were in front of us in the lobby or running errands. So we left and Dave started calling around for hot shaves.

Like the first time, it wasn’t easy to find a barber shop that offered a hot shave with no wait. After several calls, we found one: Chicago Style Cuts Barber Shop.

We headed across town and pulled into the parking lot of a slightly sketch shopping center. There were some international grocery stores, a vape shop, a laundromat, and a used electronics place where I bet you could negotiate over a $17 microwave. And then there was Chicago Style Cuts.

The name itself was already troubling for me, considering my head has no style, and if it did, I doubt it would look like Chicago. But it was only a hot shave I was after. Nothing fancy, just there to make my face bare.

As we walked into the barber shop, it was quickly apparent that diversity lived here. Black dudes, Arab dudes, and Latino dudes all in the house. My buddies and I added to the diversity as the white dude contingent. No records scratched at least, so I didn’t completely feel like I was in a movie.

When I say dudes I mean this place was filled with dudes. Like 8 barbers cutting as many people’s hair, and 10 more waiting for their seat. Yet again, our first activity was to put our names on a remarkably long sign-in sheet. No doubt we’d be waiting at least another hour to get our hot shave. We took a seat.

I had barely begun to unzip my jacket when one of the barbers pointed at us behind his empty chair and asked “who’s up?” There was no time to get more uncomfortable. I would be up, and I would be the first of my brethren to receive a hot shave in this foreign land.

I walked to the seat and shook hands with Stephen, a fairly young black guy wearing air pods and a backwards Yankees cap. I sat down and made my intentions known.

“I’d like to do a hot shave today.” It felt weird, but it felt good.

Stephen shook his head to the side. “Yeah, I don’t do a hot shave, man. You want a haircut or something?”

I definitely did not want a haircut or something. At this point I didn’t even want a hot shave. But I was in this chair, and Stephen was poised to do business.

“Nah,” I said. “Just hadn’t had a hot shave before and I wanted to do that today.”

“Yeah man, well I don’t have the towel and all that,” Stephen replied. “But I can shave ya.”

Oh was I in a pickle now. To drive across town to a rando barber shop for a regular shave was preposterous. But I had sat down in the man’s chair. I had an audience, who in my mind were undoubtedly thinking “what kinda Chicago-style cut is this white dude gonna get.” What was I going to do? Tell Stephen I didn’t want anything if I couldn’t get a hot shave, get up from the chair and go wait for a barber who could execute the hot shave? Not me, who for my sake or someone else’s is always going to keep the peace. So I said it.

“Yeah that’s cool. Shave me.”

The next 10 minutes weren’t particularly satisfying. Now, Stephen was a cool guy. We talked about LeBron a little, the being who bridges gaps across all demographics. Stephen told me to relax. But I was a man in a barber shop getting nothing but a regular shave. Not to mention I had zero cash and that’s all this place took. I was going to grab some from Dave after we walked in but didn’t get a chance because I was called to the chair so quick. So even if Stephen executed the most outstanding shave known to man, he wouldn’t get paid for it, until my buddy Dave came through and lended me his cash. Who knows if he’d be in his own chair by the time my regular shave was up.

Well, Stephen shaved me. With some foam and a straight razor. There was also some nose pinching, which I had to trust him with. I wasn’t really breathing anyway. When he finished, there was no grand aftershave solution. My face stung a little and I took it like a man who doesn’t tell people what he wants as often as he should.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked. According to the sign, a beard trim was $10-15. Surely a regular, non-hot face shave was less than that. Nope. $15 according to Stephen. I looked over at Dave, still waiting, who came and rescued me with a crisp twenty. I handed it to Stephen and thanked him. He replied the next time I came back he could maybe do a hot shave for me. I could only think that I was never coming back, a hot shave would’ve been most excellent TODAY, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get one.

When I went to sit down, I noticed my buddy Jason had settled into a chair in the corner of the shop. He had a steaming blue towel wrapped around his head, and his barber was preparing the hot shave. I rubbed my cheeks jealously and chuckled to myself. Another afternoon set aside for a hot shave, another afternoon I’d remain hot shaveless.

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After two tries, Jason had his hot shave. Yet on this day, I got a Stephen shave. A Shephen shave is a helluva lot like my own, but costs $20 and doesn’t feel as good. It may be the worst kind of shave. It’s not Stephen’s fault. He’d yet to be trained in the ways of the hot shave. And I didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to tell Stephen, “If this shave ain’t gonna be the hottest, most refreshing one of my life, then I’d prefer not to pay you a legit Jackson for something I could do on my own in half the time for free while naked.” I couldn’t say it.

Perhaps one day I’ll get the hot shave. Or perhaps I’ll wander this life, always looking for one, only to find barber shops that don’t barber, or thousands of men nowhere to be seen but somehow in line before me, or barbers who have no problem shaving a man but wetting a towel with hot water and wrapping it around a head is a skill only attained by the few truly experienced. Who knows? Herein lies the mystery of the hot shave.

“I’m ready for a dog,” she said.

Innocent words, seemingly, fell off my wife’s lips that late summer day. Surely it was time. Two years sans pooch, kids growing, memories in the making. A soft, wet-nosed little buddy would do nicely.

So my brain twitched and joined the ranks of “dog ready.” The problem with being ready for a dog is you’re prone to get one, dammit. And nothing better cements that fact then when a precious puppy becomes available in your neighborhood.

The kids were at grandma’s that week, so surprising them with a puppy when they got home would make us be like those baller parents in the commercials.

So we went to meet the puppy. I don’t know why you go to meet a puppy. What criteria could it not meet for me to fall instantly in love with it? Am I making sure it’s not too adorable, as if I’d be concerned I’d stop going to work and paying bills and putting on my underwear due to fawning over the dog?

I guess you go to meet a puppy to make sure it doesn’t find you revolting. Look at the big scary ugly not-dog trying to grab me. No thank you.

Really, unless the puppy has more than one head, it’s coming home. And it had one head in the picture.

So we met the puppy and took him home. He did really cute puppy stuff like fall over himself, paw at balls, and nibble on our fingers. The kids came home and just hated him, of course. We named him Finley.

Finley did all the not cute puppy stuff, too. Initially he had no preference where in the house to pee or drop a solid. Feeding him was like trying to put down a bowl of gizzards for a wolf. When we crated him he shrieked and moaned like we were preparing to put him in a soup.

We were going slightly mad. Something had to change.

So we talked strategy and made a game plan for Operation Keep the Dog. I would run Finley every morning to give him exercise. We would confine him to the kitchen. We would teach him to wait for his food. We would be vigilant and take him out every 15 minutes.

Our adjustments, while well-intentioned, couldn’t solve the issue that Finley was an anxious mess and appeared to have a bladder the size of a kidney bean. He asked to go out every 10 minutes. If we didn’t take him he’d whiz right there, no questions asked. If we did take him out, he’d mosey around the yard and when he finally went, all we got was a two-second trickle. Then back in the house for more puddle making. Yippidy-dee.

Often the door opening led to nothing. It seemed that he just wanted to go on our back porch. So exasperated we were from opening the door that we just kept it open. Thus the porch became his tinkle and turd room. Even days where we thought we were watching him the whole time we’d find pee spots and cold, hardened little dookies back there. It became so regular I knew I could look out the porch window every night before bed and spot them. When you know there’s a place in your home you can routinely find feces, that’s a problem.

The one thing a puppy usually has going for itself is you can pet it. It’s where the special, mutual bond is formed between the dog and the human. We couldn’t pet Finley with any regularity without him gnawing on our hands like they were his monkey kong. Even if we didn’t want to pet him he would jump and bite at our clothing as we walked by. Like, hey, you won’t forget me after I put these fresh holes in your pants.

But the coffin nail was him becoming possessive over food, or things he treated like food. Once he got a paper towel, you’d better offer him a t-bone to let go of that thing, or he’d sink his teeth into your hand like a junkyard dog.

In one final food-fanatic hurrah, Finley got up on the table and devoured a whole corncob, which is roughly the size of his torso. Thankfully his body overpowered his brain and he yacked it up immediately. Then he and I had a misunderstanding. I thought it time to clean up, while he was primed to snarf wild on cob puke. Personally I’m puke-eating-averse, so I grabbed the back of his collar to keep him off of it. But you know how it feels to grab a wild animal. One contortion and growl was enough for me to let him return to the feast. Yikes. Seriously, what’s more primal than a beast snarling at you like a demon to keep you from taking away its vomit? This activity repeated itself, until somehow I managed to get a leash on him before he could return to his corny yack for a fourth time…It’s just a damn low moment for the animal kingdom.

All of this food-related insanity felt all too familiar, for it was the indelible characteristic of my last dog, Lilly. Lilly was a beagle in the worst way, and we actually came to find that Finley’s litter mate had a DNA test and turned out 25% beagle.

So basically, our new dog had the indefatigable energy and chewing penchant of a labrador, the devour-anything nature and howl of a beagle, and the neuroticism of a caffeinated squirrel. The perfect storm of an exhausting dog was Hurricane Finley, bless his little heart.

We returned Finley to the foster to find a better home for him. By better home I mean someone who’s there all day and likes to go in and out of their house in 10-minute increments and finds it endearing to be bitten while attempting to connect.

I have learned more about dogs and myself in this ordeal. Mostly, I’ve learned what kind of dog I can tolerate. I like a dog that doesn’t bark, that isn’t high-strung, that doesn’t whimper and moan, that doesn’t need my attention, that doesn’t pursue food like a starving dinosaur, that doesn’t wake me up in the morning, or at night, or ever. I like a dog that I have to wake up. I like a dog that doesn’t move. I like a dog I can pet for 10 minutes and then gives me that look like “OK, are we done here?” or just walks away to its bed. I like a living, furry, non-ugly dog but not much more than that. I like a dog that becomes part of the scenery of my house, like a chair or a fern.

There. That’s a good boy.

The unfortunate nature of bread loaves is that they must be baked all around and inevitably have two end pieces.

Few appreciate the end pieces. They’re harder, have less of the good stuff, more crust than class. I know they’re less appreciated, not because of any real research, just firsthand observation that no matter how much of the loaf has been consumed, there are always the two end pieces.

Perhaps the most horrifying moment for the sandwich maker is to be at the bottom of the bread bag with nothing left but the end pieces. All hope for a delicious sandwich is lost; the end pieces will see to that.

It’s not that the end piece is bad, it’s just not as good.

Yet when you’re forced to eat an end piece, you may realize that it made little difference in the quality of your sandwich.

Armed with this wisdom, should we not always take the end piece, if for no other reason the next sandwich maker will likely have a slightly better experience?

Of course, being thoughtful as the “sacrificial” end-piece taker doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme. I doubt this is a good deed the Maker applauds (though perhaps He gives notice).

But if we see all of life as end-piece taking, as thousands of tiny moments to think of another, to not take what’s best, to busy oneself with gracious things that no one ever sees, perhaps we’ll ever so gradually be crafted into a man or woman of blessed life losing, an end-piece-eating being for other beings.

The bonus is we may even enjoy our sandwiches more.

A short stroll on the beach could leave you with the conclusion that we humans are very much the same.

Watch men and women collect shells. These are rocks that little animals lived in. Most are broken, dull, and unnoticed. Some are pretty, shiny, whole, or unique. Regardless, we look for them. We perambulate forward staring at the sand to uncover the gem. Many do this.

Then observe what we humans don’t do. We don’t grab the garbage shells and juggle them, or rub them on our heads. We don’t take the pretty shells and stuff them into our belly buttons. We don’t stoop down to snort the sea foam. We find the best shells, wash them off, and put them in our homes.

Or watch men and women fishing. They cast out their line, they wait, they wait some more, and then they reel their line in whether they’ve hooked a fish or not.

Notice that they don’t wrap themselves in monofilament, nor thrust extremely long sticks with nets into the air to catch gulls. They don’t pack their tackle boxes with sandwiches, nor do they swim out into the ocean to see the fish for themselves. They just cast their lines and try to catch fish.

Or witness the construction of a sand castle. The humans take shovels and pails and sea water and craft the sand into an area of more structured sand. Rarely does it resemble a castle, yet it doesn’t matter because we like the idea of it.

See that we don’t take the sand and spread mustard onto it, nor stuff it in our pockets to sell to children, nor count the grains one by one in our fingernails. We simply dig, pile, and smooth away for hours to construct something that will only last for hours.

We creatures, though in some ways quite distinct, go to a place and do almost exactly the same things. An alien observing these activities may deem them trivial, and they may very well be right. Unless what appears mundane and useless are flecks of what’s truly real and common to humanity.

That a great many of us would find beauty in a tiny shell, or happiness in reeled-in fish, or purpose in an ephemeral build-up of minerals. See our brother there, our sister there. Acknowledge that wonderful sameness on the stroll.