Day Six: The Grandpa

With The Hero (the mustache that I had originally planned to wear today) still MIA, I was forced to move The Grandpa (my final remaining mustache) up a spot in the roster. An hour before leaving for a kid's birthday party, The Grandpa and I conducted one last hunt for our fallen (out of the packaging) Hero. Reinforcements soon arrived when I heard my wife say to my 5-year-old, "Come on Zoey, let's help daddy find his mustache." I don't expect many other guys out there have had this problem. So we all searched high and low and even in-between, but to no avail. Time quickly ran out and, with a heavy heart, I called off the search and proceeded to install The Grandpa below my nose (now that's a phrase I bet you never thought you'd read).

The birthday party was at a small bowling alley that had been completely rented out so everyone there was either a friend or a family member to the birthday boy. A lot of the people there were also our friends and, interestingly enough, it was only them who either asked what was up with the mustache (being unaware of what I had been up to this past week) or stopped to admire it and ask how the donations were coming along. Everyone else at the party, assumedly, saw the thing and chose to think I was just some sort of weirdo in a fake mustache. If so, that's okay because they were pretty much correct in their assumptions, fake mustache or not. I just hope no one saw it and thought I was just some elderly fellow who would probably throw his back out if he attempted to throw a 12-pounder. Of course, when you put on a mustache called The Grandpa, you've got to expect that you'll be the target of a barrage of old age jokes. That or some boy scout will try to help you across the street.

After the party, we hit the In-and-Out drive-thru. Yes I realize that this was technically cheating and that I should have gone inside and ordered to get more stranger exposure, but time didn't allow it as we had another get together to attend to in the park shortly after. By mid-afternoon, fittingly enough, The Grandpa was seriously losing steam, meaning the adhesive was wearing out and it kept falling off. So instead of risking it falling into my food, me eating it and then either choking on it or hacking up a hairball, I decided to give Gramps the rest of the day off. By that, I meant I set it on an easy chair and turned on the game. It was snoring loudly in minutes.

So, with my 7th mustache's whereabouts still unknown, this technically could be it folks ... the end of Mustache Challenge 2011. Kind of anti-climactic to say the least. Sure I could reuse one of the previous 6 on Sunday, but, as I have no plans to even leave the house, it seems kinda moot. I mean seriously, sitting around the house all day with a fake mustache on seems even more ridiculous than leaving the house with one on, wouldn't you agree? That said, I hope those of you who have been generous enough to donate don't feel short changed by this development. If so, I apologize. Perhaps, if by some miracle The Hero finds his way back to me, I just might make it up to you by giving it one more go. Until then ...

Stay tuned for tomorrow's Epilogue.