This afternoon as I walked to get my mail I noticed a leaflet of newsprint laying perchance in my driveway. As I bowed to discard the refuse I noticed a loquacious dissertation explaining the futility of my desire to avoid becoming an obese, bearded writer with a penchant for using haughty language.

For years I have tried with varying degrees of success to avoid being obese, bearded and verbally supercilious. But having read the brilliant sermon from the hallowed newsprint scattered on lawns I finally realize what I fool I have been.

Before my epiphany I believed that if I chose not to be fat I should simply stop eating. Now I see that it was rose colored glasses obstructing my vision. But now the petal hued blindfold is gone and I realize that obesity is my fate; a fate that was sealed years ago when the Department of Transportation built a road between my home and Krispy Kreme. To refrain from gorging on doughnuts when there is a road between me and Krispy Kreme is the mindset of a simpleton. Humans can’t stop eating any more than a city can stick to its zoning code.

What a naive fool I was. And just as I now realize how naive it was to avoid gluttony I also realize I was wrong to avoid growing a beard.

You see… just as I had previously hoped to avoid becoming obese… I had also hoped to remain clean shaven. I don’t want a beard. When I was a single guy living in Atlanta in 1993 I had a beard for a while and that was fine for that period of my life. But now I’m married with children and I don’t want a beard. Beards are hot and itchy and give people the impression that a man is not trustworthy.

Yet the epistle in the yard also changed my view toward growing a beard. Now I recognize how unreasonable I have been to remain clean shaven when some people would prefer I let my whiskers grow. Of course I could make it unpleasant for bearded people to be around me but that is just selfish. How dare I not accomodate others? If I moved my family to midtown would the residents not tear down a condo tower to accommodate my desire for a single family home on a cul de sac? Of course they would. So it is only fitting that I accommodate beard lovers by growing one myself. How could I have been so blind?

But I can see clearly now. The rain is gone. I can let hair follicles grow away.

The third epiphany I had while reading the circular today was that I can no longer callously choose to use plainspoken language when writing my blog posts. Within this quaint village there is a professional columnist that has written for Alpharetta’s weekly newspaper since the golden days when MARTA was SMARTA and he chooses to embellish his work with beautifully obscure words like “embracement” and “lebensraum”. How thoughtless it is of me to disdain such verbiage and make his prose seem arrogant in comparison. Thusly I will heretofore endeavor to inscribe in the most supercilious circumambages. To do otherwise would be like forcing my readers to sit through a movie filled with tawdry dialog such as, “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.”

Providence has seen fit to share its vast wisdom in the form of a free newspaper. For that I will always be grateful. I was blind but now I see.

From this day forward, rose colored glasses will keep me from being obese, bearded and supercilious no more!