Today’s Word of the Day is fard.
Verb – to apply cosmetics, especially to the face.
From Middle French farder, meaning “to paint or embellish,” which itself traces back to the Latin fardare, a verb that sounds like it should involve medieval jousting but instead refers to the ancient art of facial camouflage.

The doorbell chimes, a tinny, synthesized death knell signaling the arrival of The Proletariat.   I swing open the door to find him vibrating on my porch: a human pimple in a shitty rented tuxedo, a creature of such profound adolescent awkwardness that his very existence is a form of passive-aggressive warfare against good taste.  He’s wearing a clip-on tie and the kind of cologne that smells like Axe body spray had a baby with a urinal cake.  He’s here to take my daughter to Homecoming, which is already a problem because she’s fifteen and he looks like the kind of kid who thinks Nietzsche is a Fortnight skin.
I let him in.  I do not offer him a seat.  I do not offer him water.  I do not offer him mercy.  We sit in silence.  The kind of silence that makes your ears ring.  He tries to smile. I stare at him like I’m trying to telepathically induce a nosebleed.  His eyes dart around the room, landing on the towering stack of books and the half-empty bottle of bourbon on the mantlepiece.  The silence stretches, thick and suffocating.  I let it linger, a tactical weapon of my own design.
“So,” I begin, leaning back, a predator enjoying his work.  “Homecoming.  A veritable pageant of hormonal panic and shitty decisions.  You must be thrilled.”
A sound escaped his throat, something between a gulp and a squeak.  “Y-yes, sir.  It should be fun.”
“Fun,” I repeat, savoring the word like a piece of cheap candy.  “An interesting metric.  Is the pursuit of ‘fun’ the primary driver of the human condition, do you think?  Or is it merely a distraction, a fleeting palliative to soothe the existential dread that accompanies the slow, inexorable march to the grave?”
His face is a canvas of pure, unadulterated terror.  His Adam’s apple bobs.  “I…I don’t know, sir.”
What a moron.  Time to really fuck with him.
After another minute of staring, I say, “So.  You believe in free will?”
He blinks stupidly.  Sheepishly.  He blinks like a stupid sheep.  “Uh.  Yeah?”
“Interesting.  So you think you chose to wear that tie?”
He looks down, confused.  “My mom picked it.”
“Ah,” I say, nodding sagely.  “So you believe in maternal determinism.”
He shifts in his seat.  I can smell the panic.  And his panic smells like fear and cheap deodorant.
“She’ll be down soon,” I say.  “She’s upstairs farding.”
The kid freezes.  His face goes from pale to a blotchy, horrified crimson.  The single word hangs in the air between us, a foul and misunderstood specter
“She’s…she’s what?” he stammers, his voice cracking.
I lean forward, conspiratorially.  “Farding.  Oh, yeah.  She fards all the time.  Can’t stop, really.  A terrible habit.  I’ve tried talking to her about it, but she gets embarrassed.  But it’s out of control.  Sometimes it goes on for hours, the farding.  She just didn’t want to do it in front of you.  She’s shy about her farding.”
The boy’s brain, bless its undeveloped prefrontal cortex, has clearly gone to a very different, very gross place.  He nods, but he’s not nodding like someone who understands.  He’s nodding like someone who’s trying to pretend he didn’t just walk into a house where the father casually discusses his daughter’s alleged gastrointestinal habits with Socratic flair.  I can see the frantic calculations behind his eyes, the dawning horror, the desperate search for an exit strategy.  The silence returns, but this time it’s electric with his revulsion.
After a few more agonizing seconds that I enjoyed immensely, he shoots to his feet.  “You know what?  I…I just remembered.  I have to…go.  I think I forgot something at home, “he says.
“Was it your dignity?” I ask, cheerfully.
And with that, he was gone.  A blur of cheap polyester and shattered dreams, fleeing my house, and, hopefully, my daughter, forever.
I walked to the bottom of the stairs, glass in hand.
“Honey!” I called up.  “You can take your time!  Your ride seems to have been unavoidably detained.”
My daughter descends the stairs, radiant and furious.  “Where’d he go?”
He couldn’t handle your farding,” I say.
She groans.  I pour myself a drink.  I am victorious.  And victory, dear reader, is a dish best served with a side of deliberate, weaponized vocabulary. 

N.P.: “Cities in Dust” – Night Club