Scrapple

Last Friday morning, I spent close to two and half hours talking, face to face, with two people, who before that Friday, I only knew from blogging.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bogart From P Town and his fiance Claire. They were in the Philly area doing some sightseeing and they took time to actually drive out to meet with me for coffee. I enjoyed my breakfast with Bogart and Claire. It was like seeing and hanging out with old friends. They are both brilliant people with such genuine personalities there was never an awkward moment (At least not for me. Maybe for Claire, when I mentioned the vibrating testicle). Since they were in town and they like to try new foods I suggested they try some Scrapple. I love Scrapple and I knew it was a regional "thing". I always understood that Scrapple came from "SCRAPS" of the pig.

I do not think I said or did anything embarrassing. What I mean is that I did not feel embarrassed, that is, until I got home.

Bogart emailed me a month or so ago letting me know he was going to be in the area. I knew Lauren was due to have the baby on the days Bogart was to be in town and I told him I would have to play it by ear. It turns out, that Friday morning was perfect for both of us. Once the time and place was set for the blogger meet up I realized I only had two hours to get ready. Normally 20 minutes would be all the time I would need to get ready but I have been growing a full beard and I needed to clean it up a little. I had a Charlie Manson like beard going. I did not want Bogart and Claire to think that they were meeting Ted Kaczynski or Rupert from Survivor so I decided to trim the unruly beard.

One problem: My beard trimmer was out of power and it takes a couple of hours to charge up. I did the best I could under the circumstances. I trimmed as much as I could until the battery went dead and then I let the trimmer charge for a bit more. I trimmed some more of my beard and the trimmer would die and I would have to wait another 15 minutes or so. Once you are committed to trimming your beard you have to do it all. I could not go out with only half of my face trim and clean. Also, I am in the middle of re-doing my bathroom and I clipped my beard without a mirror.

After about an hour and several jokes from Lauren about my "Man date" I decided the beard was good and I let it be. I left to go meet Bogart.

After the meeting I got home and I looked in the mirror and I realized that I did such a horrible job with the beard trimmer. There were stragglers everywhere. Long, white, unruly hairs that seemed to have a life of their own. I could only imagine what Bogart and his fiance thought. The worst part, how do I explain this, when one has a moustache, one does not need to worry too much about grooming the hairs in ones nostrils because they kinda blend in. Now if one decides to trim the moustache and forgets to trim the nose hairs...well it looks kinda of weird.


Crazy chin hairs that were three times longer than the rest of the hair on my face. I will spare you ugly picture of my nose hair and just show you a somewhat tame one below.

This is Bogart and Claire before they tried the scrapple. I have sent Bogart a few emails since we met and I have not heard back from him. Maybe he figured out that you can't spell Scrapple without the word "crap".

Bogart has a great blog and you should check it out.