Movember 2011 – Week 3

This weekend, the mo’ had an… Accident. I should rephrase that. It’s misleading. The mo’ had an accident the way a trampled flower “has an accident”: The mo’ was attacked.

Who was the attacker? None other than the Guardian of the Mo’, the defender of all that is manly… Myself.

Let me tell you the tale:

I found myself in the shower, perhaps after a cold, rainy evening run, or maybe just a shower before bed. The g/f was in the washroom, doing something or other, talking to me about something or other. I was prepping myself for the evening touch-up. Razor: check. Shaving cream: check. Apply shaving cream: check.

As I conversed with the lady on the other side of the shower curtain, I made the first pass. Right sideburn. It’s always job 1. Because I shave without a mirror, I need it to orient myself, get my bearings.

I continue on. Then, suddenly, I pause. Wait. Remember, I shave by feel… And something doesn’t feel right. Oh god. No. It can’t be…

I had taken a swipe at my mo’. My shaving habit is to hit right moustache next, immediately after the sideburn pass. Oh god.

My mind reeled. I felt nauseous, burped slightly, then retched into the base of the tub. A moan escaped my lips like the moan of a prison camp torture victim whose spirit is finally broken.

The g/f, panicked, with tears in her eyes, asked if I was ok. I dry heaved twice more, then slowly, wretchedly, turned my face, revealing the ugly, horrible mo-damage.

“My moustache!!” I cried, “I’ve ruined it!”

I burst into tears. My muscles atrophied and my testicles retracted into my body like a pre-pubescent child. My heart was torn, and like the lion in The Wizard of Oz, my courage vanished, replaced with a wizened grape of fear.

The g/f tried to console me. “Oh. That’s not so bad!” but I could see disgust and fear in her eyes. She no longer saw the Herculean hero she once loved, just a deformed freak, a Tom-Cruise-in-Vanilla-Sky shell of a man, broken and ugly, bitter and hollow.

I pulled myself out of the bottom of the tub.. Shuffled over to the mirror. It took every ounce of my remaining strength to reach over, turn on the fan, and open my eyes… And as the fog on the mirror slowly cleared, my misshapen face emerged like a monster from Stephen King’s The Mist, and I was revealed. A man with half a mo’. Half a man, now. Not even a man. A beast.

Over the next few days, I hid from everyone. I refused to walk the dog for fear of someone seeing my halfmo’, so she just went to the bathroom on the carpet. I didn’t eat, so I lost 10 lbs over the course of several days.

The g/f stayed out late, studying at school, avoiding the zombie I had become. I didn’t blame her.

Finally, this morning, work called me in… I had to return.

Head down, I shuffled into the office. I had smashed all our mirrors at home, so I had no idea what my scarred, ruined face looked like. I didn’t care. What did it matter? My life was ruined. A life with half a mo’ is not worth living. I would kill myself, tonight, I decided. I would throw myself from the Lion’s Gate Bridge. I couldn’t face the world, and I certainly wouldn’t condemn the g/f to living her life with… This. This thing that I had become.

As I walked hurriedly to my desk, I thought… I should document this story, not for me… It’s too late for me. But to serve as a warning for others. “You are not Dustin Hoffman in Rainman!” I would yell. “Use a mirror to shave! Don’t repeat my mistakes! Live well, young mo’s!”

So it was with a heavy hand that I raised my iPhone to snap the last photograph I would ever take… My fingers trembled as I tapped the shutter, and I sighed a long, deep sigh… Tears welled in my eyes as I remembered my family and friends, and I slowly turned the screen around to once more witness the horror…

“Oh. That’s not so bad!”