Just Another Moustache Monday
Yesterday was The Mushpot’s Moustache Monday. Here’s a quick recap. At my office the room I work in is lovingly dubbed “The Mushpot”. In the Mushpot there are five people who work regularly (and sometimes a sixth person, Y). Of these worker bees only Clamhead is a woman. (Poor Clamhead.) Last week Clamhead was on holiday on a tropical isle in the South Seas. So as a silly thing to do for her return, we decided to all grow moustaches; hence Moustache Monday. It seems the day may have been better titled “Circa 1983 Monday” or “Male Pornstar Monday”.
Of course, none of us were brave or foolish enough to try to grow a solitary moustache for said day, so for two weeks the Mushpot was ripe with goatees and beards. Save for the co-conspiritors, no one else in the office was wise to our ridiculous folley. Moustache Monday really started to get exciting on the preceeding Sunday. On Sunday I started getting nervous. I did not mind so much having a moustache for a day. I knew I would look like a schmuck, but my humiliation would be worth the laugh and horror that Clamhead would be sure to show. What worried me was that maybe the other gents involved would either get cold feet or worse, they discussed it amongst themselves and thought it would be funnier if I were the only one to come in on Monday morning with this outlandish hair on my lip. One thing was certain, I was not going to be one of the let downers! I wrote the others an email reminding them not to forget about the next day’s festivities and walked the long walk to my razor.
When I crawled into bed, brandishing my shiny new moustache, proud as you please, my wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen, shifted her attention from her book to me to continue a story she had started telling me earlier. Mid-word and mid-head turn she saw it. The recounting of the story was over, as was any conversation that may have followed. She simply said, “I can’t look at you like that.” It is not that she did not know Moustache Monday was coming, she did. Look at that picture! She was perfectly justified in her response.
Monday morning arrived without a hitch (instituting a moustache Monday could have easily upset the cosmic balance enough to cause widespread chaos and pandimonium or at least alter the names of the weekdays). I briefly considered bringing my razor with me to work, a contention plan for being the lone moustache bearer. However, I decided against this. If I was to be the only chump with a moustache, I was going to force all the others to look at my hideousness all day to remind them of their shameful cowardace. When I strolled into the office that morning I could not have been more pleased. Taube had already arrived and was working, moustache and all. It was on.
By 9 o’clock or so, all the moustaches were present and accounted for. We shared stories of the previous night and we all had the exact same worries and upset wives. (Again, you can not blame them. Look at the picture again.) Then Clamhead arrived fresh from her vacation. At first she did not seem to notice. When you work with the same people for years you certainly do not expect them all to suddenly have outlandish moustaches on the same day. She was telling us about surfing lessons (she loved them) and suddenly her head tilted ever so slightly at Taube, then he story petered out. She saw it. Oh, heavenly day, she saw it. Moustache Monday was coming to fruition! She squealed in laughter/horror. Taube just sat and looked back at her like nothing was amiss. Clamhead regained composure and continued her story. Avoiding Taube’s badge of radness, Clamhead was forced to look at the rest of us. Her story continued for another sentace or two, but then her head tilted again and her story petered out again. She saw my moustache. Another squeal of laughter/horror, though this one definitely weighed heavier on the horror end. Now she new something was up. “What’s going on?!” she inquired calmly. Half completed questions followed. “Did you…”, “What is…”, “How come…” Then it came together for her. She inspected the other two only to find – MOUSTACHE! MOUSTACHE!
She could no longer look at any of us. (Can you blame her? Look at that picture a third time!) Clamhead summed it up best when she said, “It’s just so embarrasing.” Embarrassed for herself, or her being embarrassed for us, you ask? Surely both, have you seen the picture?