"The Mustache Story"

Shame on me for assuming that everyone knew the story behind my ridiculous mustache...I’ve told the story so many times, I just figured word had spread to the northern tribes of nowhere and the far corners of the earth already. I apologize for keeping you in the dark about what is going on.

The story begins around November, I’m approaching finals week at byu and things are going well. I can't recall what I was doing but I had a weekends worth of facial hair (for those who don't know me, that's a borderline beard) and I decided to shave everything except for the mustache. It was suppose to be a one day gag, but little did I know it would turn out to be much longer. You see something mysterious happened to me as I walked around the salt lake campus with my hairy upper lip.....people treated me like crap! No joke, I was instantly discriminated against. People looked at me and spoke to me differently. They couldn’t look me in the eye and when they did it was as if they’d just noticed a massive booger, dangling like a pinianta from my nostril, yet they didn't have the stones to tell me. "Does he know he looks like a pedophile with that thing...?" I could hear some of them thinking...."Does he actually think that looks good...?" Others would say, the silence was, quite literally, deafening. Not a single person asked me about it, not that I was looking for recognition, but it was more than obvious that people were confused and curious. Anyway, I actually become a bit insecure and self conscious as a result and noticed my own self esteem dwindle. I told myself that I must race home and shave this cursed thing immediately before my precious reputation was destroyed. Funny though, because in that very same instant I said to myself: "EFF that, I’m not going to let other people dictate my self esteem....I’m going to keep this mustache until I feel completely comfortable with all these odd looks." This process took about three weeks and by that time the mustache had become a major player in my day to day image. Now don't get me wrong, I still had people giving me the stink eye, but I had learned not to notice…kind of like those people appearing on American Idol that still have no clue that they suck. After a time, I actually started receiving a few compliments, mainly from other men, but hey, it was a nice change.

O.k, I'm rambling, moving on.

It had been close to a month and my girlfriend was getting anxious for me to shave. To tell you the truth, I was getting anxious too, until I got a great idea (inspired by two of Amy's friends in our ward). You see every Christmas our single’s ward has a huge party and one of the main events is an auction to raise money for a designated charity. Everyone in the ward is encouraged to contribute something...some members are pilots and own planes and auctioned complimentary flights via their private plane etc....other items included: Jazz tickets, cookies, dates, white water rafting trips etc…yeah, its lots of fun and a big deal. My problem was that I had not thought of anything to auction. DING! Yes, you are correct; my mustache went on the auction block. I brainstormed different ideas as to what would bring the best price and wrote up the deed. I decided to auction off the "exclusive rights" to my mustache, meaning: If you won, you quite literally owned my mustache, as if it were on your own face.....FOR ONE YEAR! I had to make it a long time because that would get my girlfriend Amy to bid like crazy being that she cant stand the sight of it and would have told me to shave it instantly upon winning the auction. However, there were plenty of others interested in having me keep it in various forms so the auction would turn into a bidding war. I'll be honest this was a bit nerve racking for me because I knew what would happen if this fell into the wrong hands....I mean whatever the winner wanted me to do with my mustache is what I’d have to do....example: morning text to me from the winner says...."Good morning Chris, would you be so kind as to shave half of the mustache....thanks." You get my point. So to cut a very long story short, Amy pooled her resources and gathered money from various members of the relief society....meanwhile, the same thing was happening in the elders quorum....the bidding started and Amy didn't stand a chance in hell....she was outbid at $501 dollars then the elders quorum continued to rub it in by outbidding THEMSELVES for another $75 (it was for charity after all). I raised five hundred and seventy five dollars for charity!! A real gem on the mantle of my proudest moments ever...the mustache was the second highest item sold at the auction and I’m confidant it would have gone for over $1,000 had Amy had that much. So there it is, down and dirty. The mustache grows more and more famous by the day. I’ve even achieved some sort of rock star status amongst the byu population....it's really quite bizarre.