Nevada City, CA — Area struggling author Roy Riffle is worried that he will not be able to grow a beard long enough to satisfy the requirements of the inevitable arrival of Sharia Law. Mr. Riffle, who has lived in Nevada City all his life, recently announced to a small crowd of Millennials at Cafe Mekka that he intended to grow a beard in order to become compliant with moral code and religious law of Islam.
“You made me confess the fears that I have,” announced an unsteady Mr. Riffle to the indifferent hipster crowd at Cafe Mekka, “but I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.”
But according to sources close to Mr. Riffle, he is worried that he will not be able to grow a beard.
“Oh Roy is largely hairless,” said Ms. Aideen Riffle, Roy’s mother in a The Fazzler telephone interview. “I mean, except for on his head. Plenty there. I don’t think he’s ever shaved before. So I know he’s concerned about the lashings he’s going to get when Sharia Law arrives in Nevada City.”
According to the Islamic Perspective of the Beard, “[t]he shaving of the beard in general is considered to be from amongst those actions which the Lawgiver (Allah) has indeed considered unlawful. This is to such an extent, that it is regarded a sin by which an individual may be considered worthy of being punished.”
Punishment varies among different Islamic cultures ranging from scolding and public embarrassment, all the way to beatings. As for Mr. Riffle, he’s not giving up.
“If I can’t get this beard to grow,” continued Mr. Riffle, “I’m just going to glue one on like they did in Monty’s Python’s the Life of Brian. You know, where the women playing men had to wear them to go to the stoning. ‘Are there any women here today?’ [Mr. Riffle chuckles] And then there are men, playing women, playing men. I think that will work.”
