The Inspector, Part 3

When I was a teenager, my mother started to call me The Inspector because of my penchant for spending an inordinate amount of time in front of the mirror. I think most teenagers spend a lot of time in front of the mirror; after all, we are for the first time going through rapid bodily changes while also trying to attract the opposite sex for the first time. Being that I had quite a bout of acne in this stage of my life, it is possible that I spent more time than most in front of the mirror. Perhaps I thought that by staring at my zits, they might disappear.

This habit of looking at myself in the mirror carried through into my adult life, so much so that while living in New York, Shawn once accused me of being vain. In fact, she sang the song to further drive home her point. I was quite defensive at this accusation. I’ve never considered myself vain—I was merely inspecting, and to prove the point, I decreed that I would not look into the mirror for one week.

One week later, I took the notes I had written on this experience and formed them into an essay, which I then turned in to my professor at The New School for my writing assignment. At my group critique, my professor led off by skewering my essay ruthlessly. My classmates, taking her lead, followed with scathing remarks. The essay, I’ll agree, was not great, but I though the gusto that my professor took in dismantling it a bit harsh. I did not like her for this.

My professor was Lucy Greeley. She told me I should read her book.

Looking back now, I can see how I stumbled here, how, as a person with a face, I had failed to consider that my teacher was not like me, that my week without a mirror was trivial compared to her life before one. Still, I did not like her. She was mean.

Many in my class did not like how mean Lucy was. When it was time for us to choose our advisors for our theses, none of us chose Lucy. This hurt her. One day she popped in to one of our literature classes and asked again if anyone needed an advisor. No one responded. Downcast eyes. I could see that it hurt her, but I didn’t want to work with someone so difficult.

It would have been wise of me to do so.

There are two kinds of writing teachers, the nurturing kind, and the cruel kind. When I reflect on my time at the New School, I know for certain that it was the third essay I wrote for Lucy’s class that was my best of my entire career. It was the best because Lucy’s meanness made me reach down for something that was raw, that might shock the class, and the essay that resulted she praised and praised. My classmates, taking her lead, followed with laurels.

Not long after Lucy ducked her head into our class, she killed herself. This fact was difficult for all of my classmates, difficult because of our guilt, and difficult because of our anger. How mean of her to give up, such a strong woman who had been through countless surgeries to recreate her face, to lay down in that grey city and give in to the unfairness of it all.

The Inspector, Part 2

Yesterday, I returned home to find a sink full of dishes. Being “Husband of the Year” for two years running now, I rolled up my sleeves and got started. However, after washing the silverware and a few cups, I noted a scene that gave me pause.

Reilly’s large pink cereal bowl was partially full of leftover Peanut Butter Bumpers. However, there was also a second bowl, a smaller purple one that contained a few soggy Cinnamon Life squares. Being the world-class inspector that I am, I was able to deduce several things. Allow me to recreate Shawn and Reilly’s morning.

Shawn asks Reilly if she would like Peanut Butter Bumpers for breakfast. Reilly says yes. Shawn fills a bowl of Peanut Butter Bumpers for Reilly and lets her begin her breakfast. Then, Shawn returns to the kitchen to make her own bowl of cereal. Since Shawn does not like Peanut Butter Bumpers, she instead selects for herself Cinnamon Life. She takes the bowl into the dining room, sits down, but upon her first bite, hears a voice of protest from across the table. Reilly, being the conformist that she is, sees Shawn’s cereal and demands that she too be given a bowl of Cinnamon Life. Shawn, having had this argument before, silently thinks I should have seen that coming and goes to get Reilly a second, smaller bowl of the aforementioned cereal. However, Reilly, having eaten most of her Peanut Butter Bumpers already, is too full to finish her new—albeit smaller—bowl of cereal. Hence the scene from the kitchen sink.

Elementary, my dear Internets.

The Inspector, Part I

Every year, over winter break, I grow a beard. The tradition started in The City, where the cold winters discouraged any unnecessary shaving. Why expose my face to the sub-freezing weather when there were no workplace faces to be seen?

This year, after some discussion with a coworker, a pact was made to grow out our mustaches over winter break, and then surprise our colleagues on our first day back at work. That day was today.

In the past I have had every manner of facial hair, from soul patches to goatees to full beards. Never before have I had a mustache. The reason was two-fold: One, my dad has a mustache. Two, I’ve always thought mustaches look either silly or sleazy on younger men.

Despite these two reasons, I kept to my pact and shaved my winter break beard into a stylish mustache. Too chicken to go the full monty, I left a little flavor saver under my bottom lip. The result was hilarious. I laughed so hard when I saw the final product in the bathroom mirror that Shawn came in to see what was the matter. When I showed her my ‘stache, she was amused in the “husbands will be husbands” kind-of-way.

At work, I received a variety of reactions, most of which placed me into some ethnic group. I was told I looked like a Colombian coffee farmer, a Frenchman, Clark Gable, Borat, and an British Inspector. I grasped on to this last one as my alter ego for the life of my mustache.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce Inspector Overcast, of Scotland Yard: