Harley Davidson and The Marlboro Man

I used to be a badass. Distance running, rock climbing, rugby playing, crazy-ass expeditions into the wilderness, surfing before the crack of dawn - that was me before having two kids. At one point, back in my mid-30's, there was even talk - with Beth's support, no less - of dropping the cash on one of these. Now I'm a 40 year old laundry-doing house-cleaning grocery-shopping Stay At Home Mr. Mom, a poster child for the Stop The Pussification Of The American Male Movement. 

I'm mostly not complaining. I of course love my kids, and having the opportunity to spend more time with them is a blessing. And I've done enough Macho Bullshit for a lifetime, so I don't think I have anything to prove in that regard (I've been in a shark cage. Underwater. Nose to nose with real sharks. Big ones. The kind that kill people.) The idea that a Real Man shouldn't pitch in and help with the running of the house and the care of the children seems like something out of The Knuckle-Dragger's Handbook. Still, it occurred to me, one morning when I was sitting on the floor helping Zoe pick out a dress for her doll, a pretty one that would match Dolly's pick toy stroller, that perhaps I was losing touch with my masculine side. Even my blog posts, which used to be full of tales of Manly Fathering Adventure, had been getting weepy and sentimental. I needed to do something to recapture that old dick-swingin' he-man magic. 

I decided I needed to grow a mustache.

The idea jibed nicely with my ongoing 40/40 List - 40 random things that I've often thought about doing but haven't, to be completed by the time I hit 41. Morbid curiosity prompted me to ad Grow A Mustache to the List. Would I actually be able to grow a mustache? (Some men can't, you know, and it makes them sad, and they end up living lives of quiet desperation.) What color would it be? Would I face ridicule, discrimination and prejudice? (After all, the mustache was retired from pop culture when Thomas Magnum re-enlisted. It died along with Burt Reynolds' career.) Most important - what kind of mustache would I grow? The Snidely Whiplash?  The Harry Reems? The Grover Cleveland? The John Waters? The This Guy? 

I decided to go for the obvious choice - the Paul Teutul. Because I figured if you're going to grow a mustache, grow a mustache. I began the growth process, and after a couple of days, I looked like this:

That thing below my lip is supposed to be there; there wasn't much going on above my lip, and I was concerned that my project would be dead before it even got started. However, a few more days passed, and I began to see some progress:

  

I look like I could be one of Crockett and Tubbs' informants. Still, progress! I ruled out the Handlebar Look after the "handgrips" portions of the handlebar came in with a decidedly gray sheen. 

So, just the straight-up 'stache for me. It kept growing. I reached the point where I had an honest-to-God mustache; friends were noticing it and making the universal comment: "You have a mustache", which is neither approval nor condemnation, merely a question in the form of a partially unworded statement: "you have a mustache - why?" I was self-conscious, at all times wondering if there was some peanut butter stuck in there. Strangers - the baristas and the grocery store checkout clerks, the counselors at Lucas' day camp, waiters and waitresses - all gave me looks of pity, especially when I wore a hat ("growin' it out up front doesn't bring it back up top" - I felt compelled to remove my hat to show them all that I'm so not going bald and trying to compensate). I felt like a man removed from Time. I carried the weight of twenty-plus years of societal rejection of mustaches on my upper lip, and it was wearing me down. So, today, I say goodbye to all that - the mustache is coming off, and I return to myself. My kids will once again recognize their father, and my wife will no longer recoil from me in horror. But before I do, I'll leave you all with one last image, mustachioed Jason, may he meet Freddie Mercury and the Marlboro Man in Facial Hair Heaven. Now where's my razor?

(Photo, cowboy hat and fake cigarette courtesy of my wife.)