Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. I hope this column finds you well. Ladies, I’d like you to step away for a second so that I may have a word with the fellas.

Men, are the ladies away?

OK, good. Now, I simply must ask you boys:

What the $@! is wrong with you?!

I understand you want to be cool, but there’s got to be a limit. This is getting absolutely ridiculous.

Which one of you “macho men” came up with this idea, huh? I want to know who to blame. Who was it that invented the atrocity that is “No Shave November?”

Men, I have to tell you: This is unacceptable. Not only do you already smell like Sasquatch — which we women have learned to accept and tolerate — but now you look like and feel like him too. Not exactly the female idea of a romantic evening, having to take out a machete to cut through the forest growing on your face just to get in one teensy tiny kiss.

We as a society — or more specifically, you men — have become obsessed with masculinity and appearing manly, it seems. We women already have a hard enough time trying to get you to show emotion or accept the fact that sometimes, yes, SOMETIMES, you need help, but nooooo, you’ve got to be big tough manly man. Just pull the damn car over, already!

To you, the lazing about, the potato chips and beer, the football and headbutts, the random stripping of one’s clothes and passing of gas just isn’t enough. You have to pull this “No Shave November” crap on us. All in the name of being cool. In the words of the great late George Carlin: “You ain’t cool, you [expletive] chilly. And chilly ain’t never been cool.”

For pity’s sake, at least trim yourself! King Camp Gillette didn’t spend nearly a decade of his life attempting to create a disposable razor blade just so you could go and ignore his invention! You want to start praising masculinity, praise the man who had the ingenuity to develop his idea and partner himself with MIT graduate William Nickerson to manufacture it.

Going even further back to ancient Egypt, permanent razors were first created from copper and used on all manner of man, from peasant to pharaoh. And yet you … you and your No Shave November, you fly in the face of this history and say “Kiss my ’stache!”

And, delving even further into our history, did you know that even prehistoric man was more civilized than you? Yes, he too shaved! Flint blades have been dated back to nearly 30,000 B.C., long before you and any of your fellow “dudes” and “bros” walked the earth with your hip, rebellious ways.

Know what I’m sayin’? … Dawg? Homie G fly?

I see you’re getting kind of steamed at this message. But take a seat and let me spin some fresh rhymes for you, ’cause I’m gonna try to speak your language. I see now that you be oh-SO cool, like ice. Ice ice, baby.

Ahem.

No Shave November, colder than December. Ain’t gettin’ no love, got to hang with a thug. Boy won’t shave his face? That’s fine, I’ll keep my space. Y’all be actin’ crazy, I’m one frustrated lady! No Shave November, colder than December. Can’t wait for this month to end. Peace.

Did I do it? Did I reach you?

No? Well then, how about I make you a little deal? Bring the girls back for this, they’re going to be a part of it.

Men, you don’t want to shave? Hey, that’s cool. If you’re so insecure in your masculinity that you feel you’ve just got to look like the ZZ Top tribute band or your peeps might diss, you go right ahead. But let’s at least come to a bit of a compromise, hm?

To all the men participating in No Shave November that haven’t already driven their women away, I propose this simple solution:

You don’t want to shave?

Fine.

Neither will we.

And if you can’t tell that this column was meant to be entirely way too serious for its subject matter in an effort to poke sarcastic fun at men, go ahead and keep the beard — it’ll mark you for when we cull the double-digit IQs from the herd.

— Sophie Prell is a junior in pre-journalism and mass communication from Alta.