My name -- this week at work, at least -- is Inigo Montoya.
Prepare to buy ... me a 12-pack of Pacifico, Leticia.
"Ya know," The Bob said, as we sat outside eating breakfast at my favorite coffee shop Monday morning,
"in some cultures, it's the father who is supposed to ... ya know ... it's the father ... he's the one who makes the--"
Whenever my dad is bullshitting, he gets the same stupid look in his eyes, and he hesitates before delivering the punch line. It means that he's not clever enough to actually come up with a good one.
(The face I'm talking about is sort of a cross between the one he's making above and the one below. Anyone who has seen it knows what I'm talking about.)
"Dad," I said, not even cracking a smile.
"Shut up."
He did a half giggle as my mom made
her face: the one she makes whenever my dad makes his.
If I had had to describe it in words, I would have gone with, "How the hell did I stay married to this guy for this long?"
The Bob, sufficiently pleased with himself, diverted his gaze away from the two of us and settled it upon the tall mystery girl sitting all by her lonesome self at a table about 12 yards away.
"The father makes the introduction," came the punch line, about 3.5 seconds too late.
It was really kind of him to be looking out for his boy like that. But if there's anything a father should teach his son, though, it's how to hunt for his own dinner. And how to shave.
The subject line of about five emails I sent out at work yesterday read "the reason i grew the 'stache." That tall mystery girl -- whose name turned out to be Audrey -- is the reason I grew my 'stache. I'll explain that later. What I'll explain first is how I came to erase the word "mystery" from her description.
Shortly after hugging my parents goodbye after that breakfast, and still seeing her sitting all by her lonesome self, I took one look at the stack of printed-out academic journal articles on Angolan geopolitics I had in my hands and said to myself three words:
"Fuck Angolan geopolitics." As much fun as I have memorizing the intricacies of clashing rebel groups and offshore oil production in that godforsaken corner of southwestern Africa, I get to do that for more than 60 hours a week at work. At that moment, all I wanted to do was pull up a chair, and invite myself to sit down, classic Parsley style, with the tall chick.
"You don't mind if I join you do you?"
"No, not at all," she said, with a semi-genuine, semi-creeped out smile.
The Bob would have been so proud.
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I said I "grew" my 'stache, when that's not exactly the truth. I'd had a beard that morning. Nothing like I had in Serbia last July...
... when I looked like the guy from the 20 dinar note ....
... but a pretty solid one nonetheless. Turning it into a glorious moustache, then, only took a few minutes and a few strokes of the razor. But it added about ten years in age, and took me back about three decades in time.
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"All I could think to myself as I was talking to your friend in there was this: 'This girl thinks that I am Moustache Guy,'" I said to my neighbor Kevin, as we were eating burgers at his place, less than an hour after I'd come to own the 'stache. "But I'm NOT Moustache Guy!"
"No," Kevin said.
"No, you're not." But he certainly was enjoying the fact that his friend Allison, who I had never met until she rolled up to the barbecue, thought I was.
"Yeah I'd say it makes you look more... 'Uncle Chico'-ish."
That's what happens when you grow a 'stache for reasons other than aesthetics, though: People who you've never met will think you're Moustache
Guy.
"Don't you know what it means to become a Moustache Guy?" I shot back.
"It changes everything! I'd have to dress different and I'd have to act different! I'd have to get all kinds of robes and lotions! I'd have to get a new bedspread and new curtains; I'd have to get thick carpeting and weirdo lighting! I'd have to get new friends; I'd have to get orgy friends!"Okay fine, I stole that whole last paragraph from "Seinfeld."
But the point is this: Moustache Guy is a lot like Orgy Guy -- neither are me, and both require dressing and acting different. In Austin, Moustache Guy is Hipster Guy. And I don't want to be Hipster Guy; nor do I want people like Kevin's friend Allison to view me as such upon first meeting.
Which is why I felt compelled to explain myself as I walked out the door, stuffed to the brim with burgers and guacamole, about to hop on my bike and go ride downtown to meet Audrey and her friends.
"By the way," I said as we shook hands,
"I have to tell you the reason I have a moustache..."
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Because of the mussels -- which is ironic, since I'm not Muscles Guy, either.
"Yeah, it's Mussels Monday at this bar if you have a moustache," Audrey had said that morning at the coffee shop. She was referring to a place called Bess' Bistro on 6th. (Yes, that Bess' Bistro; the one Sandra Bullock loves.)
"But since I can't grow one I just put on this fake one I have and go."
Seeing as my lack of shame in the self-invitation department has already been well documented, you shouldn't be surprised to find out that it took about three seconds before I offered to shave and meet them later that night. It was Moustache Mussels Monday, after all.
And it was an excellent cover for trying to run game.
I went home, I read about Angola, I shaved, and I went to Kevin's to eat dinner (as mussels are not quite filling enough.)
And of course, what do I do? I eat so much at Kevin's that I find myself on my bike, riding to Bess', fighting back the urge to vomit with every revolution of the pedals, even when going downhill.
Mussels were the last thing I needed once I showed up at the bar.
"Well actually mussels aren't what's free," the bartender said when I plopped down on the stool next to Audrey.
"It's appetizers that are free if you've..." -- the lady, who didn't crack a smile once the whole night, was delivering this sentence with entirely too much seriousness, in my opinion, seeing as it was in front of five moustachioed patrons, two of whom were women
-- "... got a moustache."
I looked around; no one besides our small group of five had anyone in its party with a moustache. It appeared as if Moustache Mussels Monday was a flop.
"Okay well I'm even too full for an appetizer," I said.
"How about..."
And this is the part where I smooth talk the manager into hooking me up with a free beer, rather than a free, small piece of food.
"We can throw away a beer on him, don't you think?" the manager said to the lady, after I'd driven home my position by reminding them that I had
"a pretty legit 'stache, ya know?"
"We don't carry Lone Star," the semi-snobby, hipster bartender said when I aimed low (I felt like it wasn't my place to go for a classy beer in that situation, seeing as I looked worse than
someone who watches Channel 9 at the time).
"Hey Peter man!"
(Oh and while we're at it, you may want to watch this clip -- totally unrelated to this story, but related to guys who watch channel 9 -- and get ready to be jealous of this guy's ridiculous good luck)"Okay..."
So I got an Austin Amber, which is fantastic, and more expensive than an appetizer. I made sure to thank my moustache and its glory with every sip.
This was on Monday. Today is Wednesday. I still have the moustache. Why?
Because after I wore it to the office yesterday -- (it would have been a crime had I not at least shown it off for one day amongst the cubicles and the non-channel 9 crowd) -- one co-worker promised to buy me a 12-pack of Pacifico, my favorite beer, if I kept it until Friday.
A.k.a the easiest best I've ever made in my life.
"I think you should keep it," Audrey said when I talked to her tonight. "I think it looks good."
"You should keep it until Halloween," about three different people suggested today at work, "so you can be Inigo Montoya." (Another coworker told me she thought it made me look "more confident," whatever that means.)
"Who knows, man?" Kevin asked. "You say you don't like it now, but who knows? Maybe you'll come to enjoy it. Maybe you'll actually become Moustache Guy."
That, I highly, highly doubt.But I definitely think I've found the secret to subsidizing my beer drinking. And I've definitely found out the secret to macking on tall chicks. It's alllllll in the moustache.
