OK, the beard might just have to go.

I was taking a bus to the South Bronx the other night, standing in frnt of an elderly women with a bottle of soda. She looked up at one point and, catching my eye, starts asking, “You want a drink, Jesus? Are you thirsty, Jesus?”

This comes after I went to a Halloween party a few weeks ago wearing a kilt and had a number of people ask if I was dressed as Jesus. Jesus didn’t wear plaid! (I don’t think. This might be a promising new area for historic research.)

This isn’t the first time I’ve been mistaken for the Second Coming. I used to have shoulder-length hair I cut off after an Easter Sunday a few years ago. I was walking into church when a four-year-old sees me and says to his mother, “Mommy, Jesus has risen!”

I dunno. Maybe it’s just an instinctive reaction to my inner piety …