The grass is green. The flowers are blooming. And the chin pubes are sprouting.
As if on a mission from the almighty bearded king Chuck Norris himself, freshmen guys have taken it upon themselves to exercise their first freedom away from home.
They treat the five-blade, best-invention-since-spell-check Gillette Fusion like it's some torturing device thought up by the Jigsaw Killer (when we already know the worst torturing device ever created is Miley Cyrus' split personality).
As a result, freshman guys' non-grizzled, but rather disgusting, faces could only be loved by their mothers.
And certainly not by any college girls.
We get it. You've never gotten to grow your facial hair because your mom threatened to stop giving you latkes and brisket if you didn't shave every morning.
You've already gone a week without shaving now; you can see that you'll never get more than a few scraggly hairs.
Part of becoming a man is learning that some men are more endowed than others. Some have Burt Reynolds-like mustaches or beards like Al's (from "Home Improvement"). Some have sparse strands of pubescence.
And you're not alone. Our beloved No. 12 can't grow more than a furry upper lip, and if the Florida Gators won't even allow our future Heisman winner to wear a mini-Kerwin Bell-like, pencil-width mustache, what makes you think that your first facial hair actually looks manly?
Please, if you're whiter than paper, and if you have hair darker than charcoal, please, please stay away from the leprechaun-esque chinstrap.
You have a better chance of looking like the Old Spice man while wearing a pink tutu and singing Justin Bieber while wearing a dozen Silly Bandz on each of your puny wrists then while sporting your forest of inch-long chin hairs.
If you can grow a Wolverine-style beard, go for it... During Octobeard or No-shave November, but not while we're trying to enjoy the end of summer.
We'd be better off if you just drank the kool-aid. At least then you'd have kool-aid mustaches.
Confession time:
I can't grow real-man facial hair. It seems my Jewish and Greek heritage has overlooked myself and my siblings.
I cannot grow facial hair, so I've discovered a way around my disability....
I shave.
Go figure. Instead of attempting to show my manhood through non-existent stubble, I show my manhood through tests of intestinal fortitude (see the Alligator's video of me eating Gator Dawg's Ghost Chili Dog for proof). I also regularly sprint on shards of glass. (It prepares me for my future career as a pain-resistant superhero.)
If you're going to be a manly freshman, then you need to eat 32-ounce steaks, run weekly marathons, bench press ACRs' pick-up trucks and shave every day.
I get your man-envy for the goatee; I share your envy. But work around your youth and/or bad genes and shave. You'll make UF look less like a school full of 12-year-old, non-stop cursing N00bz on "Halo."
Andrew Pantazi is a journalism senior.
