30 Hairy Days Hath November

30 October 2011 - 03:13 By A million miles from home
Paige Nick
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
Paige Nick: A million miles from home
Paige Nick: A million miles from home
Image: Lifestyle Magazine

I don't really get the moustache. In my mind the full bushy is only really appropriate in a handful of situations. On Tom Selleck, always. On a 45-year-old sheep farmer deep in the Karoo, sometimes.

On a detective in the Brixton murder and robbery squad, usually. And on all men in November, annually.

You see, on Tuesday, the first of November marks the beginning of Moustache Season. Movember, for those of you who've never heard of it, is an annual month-long event that was invented by a bunch of Ozzie dudes in a pub in Adelaide in 1999, and which has snowballed into a Mo-phenomenon that raises funds and awareness for various men's health issues.

Talk is that it has raised somewhere in the region of R1.3-million for the SA Cancer Association. Not bad for a bunch of Mo-fos.

If you plan on getting your Mo on, here are some of the basic rules of Movember:

Rule One: on Shadowe'en (October 31) the entire moustache region (which comprises the upper lip and handlebar zones) must be completely clean shaven.

Rule Two: You have the entire month to grow, cultivate and groom your Mo.

Rule Three: There is to be no joining of the Mo to the sideburns, as this is considered a beard.

And Rule Four: There shall be no joining of the handlebars to the chin, as that is considered a goatee.

Other than that, the kind of Mo you dudes (and strange ladies) choose to groom is entirely up to you, and there are a lot to choose from. The pencil thin, the handlebar, the trucker, the rock star, the porn star, the scrubby (for those of you who struggle to grow anything of substance), the Groucho Marx, or the paedophile, to name just a few.

Sorry for you wives, girlfriends and boyfriends of men who partake in Movember. It's no fun enduring the stares, the Mo-burn and witnessing the food storage that is unavoidable with any full moustache. But it's all for a good cause, and it only lasts a month. Well, let's hope it only lasts a month.

A while ago I came across this guy on the dating website that I frequent. We chatted, e-mailed, swapped photos and then met, as you do. It turns out that between taking the photos that he'd e-mailed me and meeting me in the flesh, he'd managed to grow a level 10, defcon 4 moustache. Think Magnum meets a broom.

I checked my diary, just in case I'd forgotten to take my pills for a couple of months and it was suddenly Movember, but it was still August.

I wondered if he was doing a practise run to strengthen his follicles, or perhaps he'd lost a bet. Nothing about his looks or his demographic made him an appropriate candidate for a moustache, and I wondered why none of his friends or family cared enough to tell him how ridiculous it looked.

Hey, perhaps he was being ironic and retro cool, and I just wasn't funky enough to "get it". A goatee I could understand, that's the moustache's cooler second cousin. And a beard hints at a myriad of other personality traits. But this moustache on him just didn't make any sense.

Either way I couldn't bring myself to kiss him, I just wouldn't know where to aim. And we certainly wouldn't make it very far in a relationship because I would never be able to talk about anything else.

For example we might be out at a restaurant on our 11th date, and the conversation would go something like this:

TACHE: So, what's looking good to you on the menu?

ME: What did you do to lose the bet?

TACHE: Oh no, not this again!

See, it wouldn't work for either of us.

I guess we should be grateful that for most of the population, moustaches are only compulsory for one month every year. Things could be worse - there could be a Hairtober, Movember and Tachecember. So bring on Movember, all 30 hairy days of it.

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now