Mustache misadventures

Originally posted Aug. 22, 2017.

That guy up there in the photo, right in front, in the middle?

The ridiculously skinny one?

That’s me.

It was 1993, at my college radio station. I was 20, but could have passed for a high school student, no problem.

Now that I weigh considerably more than I did then, wear glasses and have the tiniest amount of gray in my hair, I sort of look like I’m in my mid-40s, but back then, looking younger than my age drove me crazy.

So I came up with a novel plan … grow a mustache.

Shockingly, it didn’t work.

Instead of looking older, I looked like a kid with a baby face who was growing a mustache to try and look older.

One semester, I even tried growing a beard, but ditched that idea when all that appeared was an unruly mass on my right cheek.

The mustache lasted until the night of my senior ball, just a few days before graduation. Because my facial hair didn’t grow all that fast, I didn’t need to shave it that much, mostly just to trim it when the corners curled into the corners of my mouth.

That’s what I was doing in front of the bathroom mirror when I got a little too much and actually shaved a little bit off the top of my lip.

Still, I didn’t think it looked that obvious, so I finished up and went back to my room to get ready.

I made it about three steps before one of my buddies saw me in the hallway and said, “What happened to your mustache?”

I turned around, walked back in the bathroom and shaved the whole thing off.

Of course, everyone loved it, especially the girls. They spent the next few days telling me how good it looked.

It would have been nice if anyone had told me that the previous four years.

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