WEEK 1: I was doing what I do every All Saints' Day - offering a live sacrifice of 1,000 Gummi Bears before feasting on their gooey innards - when my wife hit me with a curveball.
"Why haven't you ever done Movember?"
Good question. The short and happy answer is that I've never had prostate cancer and none of my close friends or family members have had it either so the annual fundraiser was never really on my radar. I'm not even sure I know exactly what a prostate is.
The even shorter answer is that no one had ever asked me to do Movember before.
My wife's question got me thinking. I went on the Movember website and noticed they'd added men's mental health as another thing, along with prostate cancer, that fundraising money would go towards. Now we're talking. I'm a big fan of the human brain, and I've got Alzheimer's in my family so I've seen what it's like to lose a mind.
Speaking of the mind, one thing I love about being a dad is the subtle brainwashing you can inflict on your kids.
Nothing nefarious, just sensible little things like making them believe that the Edmonton Eskimos are evil (got that one from my old man) and that fruit is a dessert.
When we finish meals at our house my son doesn't scream for chocolate cake, he does happy dances for oranges. That's a nice bit of brainwashing by my wife. And when we have that orange he always wants me to peel a long strip that he can hold up to his lip for, as he calls it, a "MOO-stash."
Quick tangent: We've also already brainwashed him to say "skip" every time a commercial comes on television - we watch a lot of pre-recorded stuff and the skip button gets a lot of use. During the Grey Cup halftime show on Sunday my son paid rapt attention while an apparently still-alive Gordon Lightfoot sang his "Canadian Railroad Trilogy."
"The man sang very, very well," my son said at the end of the performance.
Then Justin Bieber came on stage. "Skip," said my son. I've never been prouder.
With such a precious little brain to protect, I started thinking about all the laughter and joy my son brings me. Then I thought of the other little dude hanging out womb-side in my wife's belly waiting to make an appearance in a few months. Maybe it was time for me to set a manly example for these boys. Maybe this was a cause worth taking up. Maybe, truth be told, I'll take any excuse to grow facial hair.
"I'll do it," I said, not realizing my wife had left the room and gone to bed hours ago.
Week 2: When I finally got around to shaving off my beard (Editor: Oh, that's what it was.), leaving only a moustache behind, my wife had an interesting question: "Why are you doing Movember?"
I got a lot of funny looks from friends and strangers alike as my 'stache continued to grow throughout the month. It's a bit of an odd feeling: my field of vision - except for the hour or so I spend gazing at myself in the mirror each day - stayed the same but everyone looking back at me got a full taste of greasy lip hair. Or, as my wife insisted on labeling it, greeezy.
My lovely wife also informed me that I looked like Ron Jeremy. If you don't know who Ron Jeremy is, I'll just say you might want to wait until after work to Google him.
If you do search his name on the Internet, you should also make sure there aren't any children, grandparents, clergymen, impressionable dogs or easily offended ferns nearby. And whatever you do, do not select the "I'm feeling lucky" option.
Speaking of adult entertainment, "You should make a porn film" was something a co-worker actually said to me as I sat saturating my 'stache with pizza sauce in the lunchroom. Not realizing I was putting off such a sexy vibe, I thought for a moment what that would be like. On second thought, no thanks.
Week 3: OK, here's where this thing started getting real. Growing actual facial hair is legitimately one thing that separates boys from men. No one comes out of the womb with five o'clock shadow. Well, no one but Chuck Norris.
Even now, as a 30-something daddy, I still get a thrill knowing that I can grow a proper 'stache, unlike those little punks on skateboards in front of the 7-Eleven.
The novelty, however, didn't last too long. One day last week I enjoyed a delicious bowl of perogies topped with cheese for supper. Hours later, cheddar stink was still running around my lip forest like it was filming Blair Witch 3, Evil Lurks Right Under Your Nose.
Yuck. It's itchy too. I don't know how perma-'stachers do it.
Week 4: Home stretch and this thing is drawing rave reviews now. It's so thick it's condensing the breath from my nose in the cold morning air and running it off like a 'stache storm sewer.
I could be wrong, but it feels like I'm getting a bit more respect these days. I test it out on my son, shooting him a 'stache-tastic look while asking him to please stop chewing on his fake wooden sushi knife. He stops, momentarily, and then gives me a look right back that can mean only one thing: skip.
. . .
If you've enjoyed my columns feel free to look up my name at movember.ca and throw a few dollars in there. Or find a friend with a more meaningful story and give him a donation - it all ends up in the same place.
All you men out there, don't forget to let a doctor feel that old prostate once in a while. I'm still working out exactly where it is - it can't be that hard to find, right?
